


tell me no

by halfwheeze



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: A Finding Yourself Story, ADHD, Actually Talking About Your Problems, Anxiety, BAMF Dora Milaje, Banter, Being Purposefully Off-putting, Bickering, Brief suicidal ideation, Brooklyn 99 References, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes as Father Figure for Harley Keener, Bucky Barnes loves science, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky goes by James, Christmas, Clint Barton Redemption, Companionable Snark, Competitive Harley Keener, Competitive Tony Stark, Cooking, Crochet, Cuddling, Dad Bucky Barnes, Declarations Of Love, Discussion of past Stucky and Stony, Domestic, Domestic Bucky Barnes, Domestic Fluff, Domesticity, Exasperated Harley Keener, Familial PDA, Fighting, First Kiss, Friday Says a Bad Word, Full Sap, God the Domestic Fluff, Hanukkah, Harley Keener Feels, Harley Keener's Attitude, Height difference, Homesickness, Hyperfixations, Insecure Harley Keener, Interruptus?, Intimacy Starved Bucky Barnes, Irondad, Italian, Italian Peter Parker, Italian Tony Stark, Jessica Jones Kicks the Shit Out of Clint Barton, Just so fucking sappy tho, Knitting, Les Mis References, Light Angst, Lone Ranger Bucky Barnes, Long Haul Ship, Loom Knitting, Love and Appreciation of Michelle Jones, M/M, Malibu, Mild panic, Motorcycle Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff Redemption, Nightmares, Not Clint Barton Friendly, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, One Punch Knockout, PDA, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Pescetarian Harley Keener, Pescetarianism, Peter Parker Feels, Physical Ticks, Pietro Maximoff Resurrection, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective FRIDAY, Protective Harley Keener, Protective Jessica Jones, Protective Matt Murdock, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Return of the Rogues, Return of the Wakandans, Rom-Coms, Romantic Comedies, Self Hate Mentions, Slow Burn, Snark, Soft Bucky Barnes, Stark Tower, Steve Rogers Redemption Arc, Steve Rogers Redemption Two: Electric Boogaloo, Tastes Like Resolution, The Bots, The Boys Go To Therapy, The Dora Milaje - Freeform, Therapy, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Playing Monopoly, Tony Stark as a Father Figure for Harley Keener, Tony Stark as a Father Figure for Peter Parker, Trans Character, Trans Harley Keener, Trans Male Character, UST, Violence, WE’RE FINALLY THERE BITCHES, Wakanda (Marvel), Wakandan Technology, Wanda Maximoff Redemption, Yelling, Yule, and we love her, angry harley keener, blood mention, but it’s still sexual in nature, comforting bucky barnes, discussion of nudity, everyone is protective, flirtation, hella fluff, holiday celebrations, ironfam, like definitely not something one can count as smut, not team Cap friendly, not wanda maximoff friendly, physical affection, possessive thoughts, really mild sexual content, recovering Bucky Barnes, soft tony stark, the slowest burn, ticks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-01-05 07:43:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 54,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18361631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: Barnes, 107th Infantry 32557038.Barnes is not Bucky. Barnes is not the Winter Soldier. Barnes doesn't know who he is, or even sometimes, what he is.Maybe Tony Stark can help him figure that out. Or maybe, if he just gets all the tools, he can fix Tony along the way too.





	1. headfirst

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the beginning of the end!
> 
> No, but really, this is Tell Me No. I've been working on it for months, writing and rereading and grinding and what have you, and my alpha reader Mei - sleepoverwork. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it! It will be updating every Monday and Friday until it is done!

_ Barnes, 107th Infantry 32557038.  _

That’s the most that Barnes can get his internal recognition to identify himself as, the most of the identity that Steve Rogers wants him to have that Barnes can absorb. He is just Barnes now, not James Buchanan, not Bucky, just Barnes. He’s walking away from Princess Shuri now, his first 21st century friend. He’s completely unwilling to call Sam Wilson his friend, with a different but similar sentiment for King T’Challa. Barnes is not meant to have friendships with kings, and he thinks that that might be a piece of New Yorker from the 1930’s in him, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t always want to. 

Princess Shuri has given him enough to leave with, a way out. She developed the software that took the triggers out of his mind, designed him an arm but didn’t attach it, simply because he doesn’t want it. He trusts Shuri, trusts Wakanda, trusts a grand majority of the people he has met in this giving country, but. There’s a hesitation there. He was not allowed to read files, not allowed to know them, not allowed to find out anything more than a casual visitor, so far and few between as those were. He does not want the chance to be made a weapon of again, and he trusts Princess Shuri with his life, but perhaps not with his future. It is not kind, but it is what he is. 

Steve Rogers does not know that Barnes is leaving. Steve Rogers doesn’t even know that Barnes is awake, functioning and walking around, let alone able to leave under his own regard. The cryogenic tubes in Wakanda are not see-through like Hydra tubes, and it is easy for Princess Shuri to fool Rogers into believing that Barnes is still in one of them. 

Madame Okoye, who does not like to be called Madame in the slightest, has taught Barnes how to pilot one of the Wakandan ships. It’s a game of kinetics rather than logic, and Barnes likes it much more than classic, Western flying mechanics. Barnes leaves in the dead of night, not because he is worried of Rogers seeing him through the one way glass that is used on all Wakandan ships, but rather because he has found himself more comfortable in shadow. He wonders, idly, how uncomfortable that would make Rogers, but he finds that he doesn’t much care. Rogers is not his problem. 

Princess Shuri stands on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek, patting his face once. She has treated him like a mix between a cat, an older brother, and a very strange friend during his stay. He has come to adore her in the place of the three sisters that stand foggy in his memory, though the parts of him that are shaped like the Bucky of Rogers’s memory ache for them. The princess puts a hand on his shoulder and then steps back from him, wiping her hands down her skirt like she had never admitted to such affection. 

“Well, White Wolf. Now you leave me. I get used to you, colonizer, and now you’re off with the wind! I should have expected this,” Princess Shuri scolds. He can see the teasing smile trying to work it’s way onto her face, but he puts his hands up in defense anyway. 

“Princess -” he starts, but she rolls her eyes. 

“You know I am joking, white boy. Go find yourself, or whatever it is the kids are doing these days,” she says, as if she is not much more child than he is, as if he is a younger brother to her rather than the man who had been tag teaming with her older brother in carrying her around and throwing things at her as she invented. He crosses his arms over his chest, a Wakandan salute, before kissing her forehead. 

“Wakanda forever, princess. Be well,” he says as he leaves her, unforgiving of the way his chest aches. He will forget to miss her soon, or they will meet again; these are how things work in his life. He does not know how to miss his mother nor his father, barely knows how to miss the sister shaped holes in his life, barely remembers Steve’s mother or the people who lived on their block. He remembers Steve Rogers in vivid color, but it’s different from what Rogers expects as well; they are just memories. They are recordings, movies that Barnes can watch when he’s bored or when they come to him, but they are not something that belongs to Barnes. 

Most of Bucky Barnes died when he fell of the train. 

It feels like a life that was once lived by this body, but perhaps not by Barnes. He considers it as he climbs into the ship, immediately walking over to the operation plate. Engaging the plane is actually easier than most Western ships, not needing so much personal adjustment as it adjusts to Barnes instead. He has to stand to operate the ship, but Barnes is used to standing. He would stand for days sometimes on missions, the serum constantly repairing the wear it would leave on his bones and joints without a complaint. He doesn’t know immediately where he’s going, but there are only so many places to go. 

So, he goes, theoretically home. To Barnes, that might be Moscow, that might be St Petersburg, or it might be a thousand bases where they had destroyed him, but none of them are full of memories that Barnes would like to relive. Instead, he turns on the stealth operations and heads for New York, heads to Bucky’s Brooklyn. Tony Stark will be there. In New York, not really in Brooklyn, but in the area. 

Maybe he’ll take care of Barnes. Maybe he’ll do what needs to be done. Or, maybe he’ll surprise Barnes. That seems to be his thing. It doesn’t matter. 

Barnes guides the ship across the sea much faster than it would be in a western plane, taking perhaps four hours. He doesn’t really think about time, or needs, or anything that would help other people contain how long things take in their life. Barnes knows how long it takes Wilson to eat a sandwich, how long it takes the Captain to walk twenty feet, but he doesn’t really time things within himself. It seems pointless to observe himself as he observes others, as if there is something to learn from the practiced maneuvers that he takes to look normal in the eyes of others. It seems pointless to think about himself at all, sometimes. 

Eventually, Barnes lands the ship in Central Park. He turns on a sensor that will make it pilot itself back to Wakanda, a natural return mission that Princess Shuri told him was an option for him to take if he ever wanted it, but he doesn’t. He can’t, not so long as Rogers has taken field in Wakanda with Wilson and the Witch who can take over minds and all of the Rogue ilk. It is not fault of Wakanda that Barnes does not want to stay, but he still must leave. He needs to find out who he is, not just who he was. 

He has supplies, but only enough for a few days; he refused to take more from Princess Shuri. She had offered him a small world of possessions, offered to engineer a way to fit them into a backpack, but Barnes had declined. He does not want to be attached to a marvel of modern science, not like that, and she understood. She had pouted and shoved at him playfully and called him  _ boring,  _ but she had not pushed him on the issue. It’s what he likes about the Princess rather than Rogers. She always understands. 

He knows that she doesn’t expect the ship to come back yet, but it’s time. He’ll stay in New York whether Stark finds him or not, and he’ll wait it out. He has to debate with himself about whether or not he should let cameras see his face, knowing that it would be a toss up on whether Stark or the new HYDRA found him first. Based on the difference in resources, he allows it. He turns his baseball cap backwards and nods to the nearest camera. Walking down the street is almost easier when he’s walking as if he’s proud to exist, and that is much more Bucky Barnes than it is Winter Soldier. 

It’s not even four hours before the Iron Man suit is hovering beside him as Barnes sits atop a roof. His leg is hanging over the edge of the roof, precarious, but Barnes doesn’t really think about it. It wouldn’t bother him to fall, he thinks, only the possibility of survival. He looks at Stark blankly. 

“Wassup, Red October?” the Iron Man asks, sounding confused and hesitant. Barnes had expected anger and hellfire, but he’s used to things being different than when he left them. Stark will remember his anger soon. If there’s anything that people remember, it’s how to hate the person who killed their parents. 

“Stark. You found me. What now?” he asks in return, raising an eyebrow. It’s the only expression that ever feels natural, this blank and slightly smug curiosity, but that’s neither here nor there. The head of the Iron Man suit tilts to the side, a pattern of body language that Stark can’t even control while inside of a massive tin can. Barnes wonders what it’s like to feel like that, so deeply that it is something that is so natural that one can’t push it down so simply as a tick. 

“Are you going to try to kill me?” Stark asks, and Barnes barks out a humorless laugh. It’s a fair question, he supposes, but the bitterest parts of him imagine how it would be for him to end the Stark line like that, for him to take out the last three. It almost burns in his nose, and it’s the closest Barnes has been to crying in almost eighty years. 

“Nope. Not even if you try to kill me first,” he says, shrugging a shoulder and letting his eyes fall. He scans over the ground so far below him and waits for the vertigo to set in, waits for how easy it would be to fall again. Bucky had fallen. So should Barnes. Stark interrupts, putting himself between Barnes and the open air. 

“Hey, no, none of that. People don’t die in front of me anymore, I don’t allow it, thanks,” Stark says, and then he’s hauling Barnes up by the ribcage. It’s almost like how one would grab a child from up under their armpits, but instead making steady holdings of the ribs that still stand out against Barnes’s skin. 

“What are you -” he starts, but being interrupted seems to be a trend today. Barnes hopes it does not continue as such. 

“You’re not allowed on roofs anymore! I’ve just decided. So. We’re going back to my tower! At least for a little while. And, you know, if you consent. Consent is important, kids. That’s what I’m trying to teach the kids anyway,” Stark rambles, though it’s odd to hear so many words at once through the grumbling of the Iron Man mask. It sounds much more gravelly than the Tony Stark on tape, and something in Barnes is calmed by that. He doesn’t know why, but he relaxes in the hold of the Iron Man anyway, going limp in the carry that will take him to a place that he does not know simply because he does not know it, but he knows the man carrying him. He only knows him in name and reputation, but he knows Stark. 

Stark starts flying off when Barnes goes limp, and Barnes supposes that’s fair. He isn’t going to give a verbal response anyway, so Stark may as well get going. Flying from Brooklyn to Manhattan should be stranger when thrown over someone’s shoulder as if one is a bag of potatoes, but Barnes doesn’t mind it. It’s a bit freeing in that he knows it’s something that Bucky never experienced. It’s completely new. 


	2. tambourine

There’s a voice in the tower. Her name is Friday and she calls Barnes  _ Barnes  _ and she does not call him Sargent after it makes him flinch and she never, never calls him Bucky. He should probably think of Friday as an acronym, as an all caps affair, because it’s probably what Stark means by it, but she’s his friend. Friday is his friend and Friday is her name and that’s enough. It doesn’t matter that it stands for something that she definitely told him and it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t seen Stark for three days, because he has Friday and Friday is his friend. He doesn’t know how friends work. But she’s his friend. 

Stark had adopted a professional attitude when they had reached the tower, apparently having calmed himself from the panic on the roof in the fly over. Barnes really has no idea why he was panicked in the first place (would it be so bad for Barnes to stop existing?) but he misses the personal way that Stark had spoken before, rather than what Barnes gets now. Now, there is a cookie cutter smile that looks as if it was practised in the mirror, a sense of propriety and the exact measured nature of Stark’s voice that Barnes recognises from the interviews of Stark that he has watched in his tenure at the tower. 

He’s sitting criss-cross on the couch in the living room on the common floor when Stark approaches him to speak. The thin line between Barnes being startled and Barnes going into a Winter Soldier mode of sorts is preserved by the mismatched socks on Stark’s feet, human and distracting. Barnes breathes out through his nose and drags his eyes up to Stark’s face, which is shuttered closed like a window in a suburban stoner teenager’s bedroom. Barnes picks at his pants, rubbing along the seam that’s started to show wear. He thinks that they were Rogers’s pants before they belonged to him. 

“You alright, soldier?” Stark asks, and Barnes doesn’t flinch. Unlike his rank, soldier is not specific to Bucky, but rather something that Barnes has been called for a century. It’s familiar. Comfortable. He nods. “Alright, then, I have a question. You ever been to the west coast?” Barnes narrows his eyes, tilting his head. 

“No,” he answers, though he does not understand the question. Neither he nor Bucky who had come before him had ever been to the west coast, even on missions or while being moved in stasis. Anything west of New Jersey is completely untouched by any of Bucky’s memories, and something in Barnes likes that. Likes the idea of that. 

“Wanna try Malibu out for size? It’s in California, and I’ve got a pretty nice house there. I usually stay there, but I happened to be in New York for business when Fri pinged you on the radar,” Stark explains, making hand gestures along with his speaking that the assassin in Barnes wants to follow with his eyes, but the damaged follower knows not to. It’s impolite, welcome to punishment, welcome to refute. He thinks about Stark’s question and whether or not it’s actually a question, whether Barnes actually gets a choice at all. 

“What happens if I don’t?” he asks, just to ask. He’d like to know what the other option is, if Stark doesn’t plan on giving him a choice, if it makes a difference. Stark shrugs a shoulder, sitting down on the couch at least three feet away from any part of Barnes’s person. Barnes doesn’t know if it’s out of fear, that damned false professionalism, or some sort of respect of personal boundaries. 

“I leave you here. Friday keeps an eye on you. Someone probably finds you eventually because I’m not here to bat eyes away from your trail. I can try to do that from a distance, but I won’t be as good at it. You can leave if you want, I guess. But, I don’t think you do. You decided to get caught. What happens from here is up to you, soldier.” 

It’s almost calming as Stark weighs his options for him, putting everything out on the floor so that Barnes does not have to. He’s honest and fair, which is telling of his character, and Barnes nods. It’s easy to accept Stark as some sort of quasi-handler, even as Barnes knows that isn’t what he is. He knows that Stark is something more of a roommate, maybe someone he can depend on, even if it’s not a kindhearted, soft relationship. It’s nothing like Bucky’s Steve or Yasha’s Natalia, but it’s a place to start. 

“I’ve only ever seen the Pacific from the other side,” he says, which both is an answer and isn’t. Stark can gather what he means, Barnes knows, because Stark’s file lists so many impressive traits that all just mean that he’s one of the most intelligent men in the world, all in different wording. There are presented accolades in his file, some results from his three PhDs, some studies performed by Stark himself, but it’s all the same thing: he’s smart. He’s intelligent. He’s trustworthy in the field of logic. 

“Well, pack up your shit, Barnes. Private jet leaves in four hours,” Stark says before he wipes off his hands on his pants, standing. He nods at Barnes once and then he’s in the elevator, almost too fast to be human. Barnes knows that Stark does not like him, and it’s a fair dislike; Barnes did kill Stark’s parents, after all. After the elevator dings with Stark’s arrival on his own floor, Barnes looks up at the ceiling. 

“Are  _ you _ in Malibu, Friday?” he asks, quiet because he knows that she can hear him anyway. It doesn’t matter that sometimes he hates the sound of his own voice, not with Friday, not when it’s just him and her. Friday makes a humming noise that is all too human, all too soothing, and Barnes relaxes before she even answers. 

“I am wherever the Boss goes, Barnes. As long as you’re with him, you’re with me,” Friday assures, and Barnes sags even more, relaxing before he gets his shit together. He hauls himself up and goes to the elevator, trusting Friday to take him to his quarters without his direction. She’s good like that. 

He contemplates his belongings in the meantime. He has a cell phone provided by Stark, which Barnes found on his bed after getting out of the shower on his second day in the tower. It’s preloaded with all kinds of applications and music, and Friday teaches him how to navigate it. Along with the phone, Barnes has drawers upon drawers of clothing that all seems to fit him rather well, which makes him wonder when Stark took his measurements. Friday likely does some sort of body scanning all the time, but Barnes doesn’t ask. If she does, he trusts her and Stark with it. If anyone can be trusted with the measurements and intricacies of a super soldier’s body, it’s the two of them. 

Barnes doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be counting Friday as a person or not. Stark does in the few times that Barnes has heard him refer to her - always in she/her pronouns, calling her his ‘baby girl,’ his pride and joy. There was a touch of sadness when Stark had said that, but Barnes has no idea how to broach the subject, or if he even should. There’s no reason for Stark to continue to house and deal with Barnes should he become a bother, so it’s better to leave uncomfortable topics alone. 

“Can you run a checklist for me, Friday? Just, as I pack? Is there anything I’m meant to use to pack?” Barnes asks as he enters his bedroom, immediately made settled by the items that so surely scream that they belong to him. His weapons are laid out on the bedside tables, cleaned and cataloged, save for the two he keeps in his shoes. He cannot let someone attack him, Stark or Friday. That is simply not an option; being armed is safer. He must protect this new place. 

“Sure thing, Barnes. There should be three suitcases of various sizes beneath the right side of your bed, just to your 5 o’clock. There are weapons cases in the hall closet,” Friday rattles off, efficient and clear. Barnes sets to work in pulling out all of his drawers, dumping them onto the bed in a haphazard fashion. The drawers are made of metal, and they balance easily in one hand - Barnes doesn’t know if that was a conscientious choice of Stark’s or if that’s just something that happens to be happening for him in this moment. It doesn’t really matter, after all. It’s just something. 

He takes out the largest of the suitcases and arranges all of his clothes inside of it, uniformly putting together colors and clothing types and levels of comfort. It will save him time later when it comes time to unpack. His phone charger follows his clothes into the pit, arranged along the outside of the clothes as to make sure it does not tangle. He grabs the weapons cases from the hall closet and begins to arrange his knives in some of the carriers, setting up a more contained unit for his guns. He needs them to keep himself, Stark and Friday safe, or he would much rather move to just knives. Guns are loud, and Barnes does not find himself so forgiving of loud noises anymore. 

“What am I missing?” he asks, half to himself and half directed at the ceiling. Friday makes another of her humming sounds, again all too human, and Barnes cracks a bit of a half smile. It almost hurts in how it strains muscles he so rarely uses. 

“Bath products? The same variety are in the Malibu house, but if you’re attached, they may be needed. Also, the Starkpad on your desk. It is equipped with much the same as your phone, but it is interconnected with my interface, should that become something you find yourself needing,” Friday provides, and Barnes snatches up the tablet. He hadn’t known, but now that he does, such a device needs to be on his person at any time. He hadn’t known Stark trusted him with something like Friday, but Barnes will not be letting anyone close to anything that could interact with her. She’s his friend. 

“I don’t really need the bath products. Can you inform Stark that I’m ready to fly when he is? Please word that with some semblance of propriety, though,” Barnes requests, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. He’s okay to show things like this, this almost-embarrassment, in front of Friday because he knows she won’t care. Humans have such messy reactions to things, so personal with that which does not involve their person. Sometimes, Barnes thinks he is more machine than man. 

“Done. Boss says that he’ll be ready in approximately five minutes, if you would like to leave earlier. Thoughts?” she asks. Barnes tilts his head, but nods just after. He doesn’t quite understand why Stark allotted him four hours if the man himself would be ready in less than half a singular hour, but Barnes will not question it. Whatever Stark decides is good for himself, he supposes. 

“So, where do I meet him?” he directs at Friday, slinging the weapons cases over his good shoulder and picking up the one suitcase he had actually used. The Starkpad is thrown into the same weapons case as the guns, just into one of the side compartments, while Barnes had thrown his phone in his pocket hours ago. There’s never all that much of a reason to look at it, besides the Netflix list that either Friday or Stark had set up for him. Barnes hasn’t bothered to ask. 

“On the roof. Boss has indicated that this is an  _ exception  _ to the no roofs rule, not a new normal. He made sure that I would stress that. So, the roof, but please do be careful, Barnes,” Friday advises, her voice much too soft for something computer generated. Barnes doesn’t know how to react to it. She’s all too kind in her thinly veiled worry, so much kinder than most anyone had ever been to Barnes. Many people had been kind to Bucky, with his bright eyes and suggestive smirks and all of that which Barnes could no longer be, but not so much to Barnes, who is known for his curtain of hair, his shifty eyes, his face that never smiles. 

He doesn’t know how to be anyone else. 

“I’ll be careful, ma’am,” he assures, and then he’s headed to the elevator. Friday takes him to the sky without a word of exchange, no direction, because it’s not like she needs to be told. Barnes takes these moments to steel himself, relaxing as much as he can. It’s not like he really knows how to do that anyway. He gently takes himself through breathing exercises that Wilson had taught him in an effort to avoid the Winter Soldier moments that Barnes still sometimes has, reproachful of the fact that Wilson is useful at all. Barnes supposes he’s not all bad, but he’s not great either. 

“Let’s rock and roll, Barnes. You ready to go?” Stark says as Barnes walks out of the elevator and onto the roof, sunglasses on in the fading light of the afternoon. He looks like the billionaire playboy that had existed before he became the Iron Man, but Barnes knows that isn’t who Stark is anymore, just as much as Barnes is not Bucky anymore. He doesn’t know how the other pretends so well. 

 

Barnes nods, and they head for the Golden Coast. 


	3. be safe

Having metal wrap around one’s bones and come out into a hard, metal shoulder that leads to nothing is more difficult on the west coast. California is warm. New York hadn’t been great in the way of living with a detached limb, certainly not great for living with metal of any kind, but California is worse. Sure, Californian autumn is much easier than Siberian winter, but that’s not a very hard competition. Most things are better than Siberian winter. October looms over the form of light breezes rather than a New Yorker’s wind and rain, and it’s strangely calm. Barnes hasn’t decided if he likes it yet. 

There’s a yard in Malibu, and he walks around it sometimes. Friday talks to him through the Starkpad that he now keeps on him all the time. She reads him wikipedia articles and tells him about Stark’s old advancements; anything new is kept on a bit of a tight leash, but Barnes doesn’t mind. It’s fun to learn about things anyway. 

They’ve been in Malibu for three days when the first grocery delivery arrives. Barnes signs for it because it says on the paper that either he or Stark are supposed to. It surprises him that signing is an option for him, that it’s even okay to have his name on a piece of paper, but he chooses to push that down. Instead, he starts looking through the bags once he drags them to the kitchen, dividing things into refrigerated items, freezer items and things that go in various cabinets. He wonders if he can rearrange things. It can’t hurt to ask Friday, especially when she’ll definitely relay the question to Stark. 

“Friday? Can I rearrange the kitchen?” he asks, digging his fingernails into his thigh as to alleviate some of his anxiety. There’s a moment of silence before Friday makes an affirmative noise. 

“Looks like a yes, Barnes - Boss never uses it anyway. He can’t cook to save his life, though don’t tell him I told you,” she answers conspiratorially, the barest hint of a laugh in her synthetic voice. He internally thanks Stark for both the kitchen and for creating Friday in the first place, because Barnes doesn’t know where he would be without her. He pulls out the meager food stores that the kitchen already has, setting them on the counters next to the new foods. Arranging them is a sort of catharsis, because everything has its place once Barnes has decided on it. It’s only that he doesn’t really know what to do when he’s done arranging things that makes things a bit hard. 

“Have you considered learning how to cook?” Friday asks out of the blue, but Barnes does not startle. She doesn’t really startle him anymore. Barnes contemplates the question. It sounds soothing, almost, to know that his food is safe for both himself and Stark, should he be able to get Stark to eat it. Perhaps Friday can help convince him of that, but that will have to wait until Barnes even creates something edible in the first place. 

“Can you pull up a relatively easy recipe for me on the Starkpad?” he requests, answering without really answering, and Friday follows his supplication without pause. It’s a short recipe for black bean and corn quesadillas which boasts a vegetarian label right at the very top. It embarrasses Barnes that Friday has noticed his recent inability to stomach meat of any kind, but it’s a good thing she did. He isn’t sure he could cook meat right now, though he doesn’t know why. Something about it just feels wrong where it never has before, and maybe it’s a medical thing. He just doesn’t know. 

All of the ingredients on the list are somewhere on the counter, so Barnes just puts away all of the things he doesn’t need. Having a plan calms him, and he thanks Friday quietly, just nodding when she says that all is welcome. Gratitude is hard to express, so he just presses on. It’s eight servings, so it will definitely feed both himself and Stark, so at least Barnes can plan to express his appreciation in that regard. He chops the onions for the recipe with quick precision, unsure of why this methodology of using a knife is so familiar, but willing to move on with it anyway. 

Perhaps it is one of Bucky’s skills, the ones that Barnes does not remember learning but sometimes gets flashes of. Barnes wouldn’t mind it, he supposes, wouldn’t mind to have inherited the most basic of skills from a man he doesn’t remember the emotional significance of being. He distracts himself by adding the other ingredients to the onions when they look translucent, enjoying the sizzle they give. It’s supposed to take thirty minutes in cook time, so he allows it to simmer for a while. Frying the actual quesadilla part of it, even if there are enough to feed eight people, should be relatively fast. 

During the simmering, Barnes watches Criminal Minds. It’s likely not a healthy fascination, but it’s a part of psychology that he actually finds interesting. It opens the door for him to research more of psychology without the Bucky shaped pieces of him throwing a fit about how mental health is a scam, and other 1930’s blather about mental illness. Barnes knows that it’s not like that. He has read Stark’s file, Natalia’s, Barton’s; they are all some level of absolutely fucked up, and there is no way that Stark is lying, that Natalia would admit to something unreal, that Barton would let it drag him down. Ten minutes into the episode, he pauses to check on the food. It’s bubbling, so he tastes it. 

_ “ _ _ Ebat,” _ Barnes curses to himself as he burns his tongue, but at least it’s research enough to know that the food needs salt. He salts it and takes it out of the pan, pouring it into one of the many bowls he pulled from the cabinet. He hadn’t known what size would be applicable, but it’s not all that much food. He gets out tortillas and begins to assemble the quesadillas, frying them as he does; it’s a lot more fun than he expected it to be. He had expected the surge of calm, but not the spark of challenge, the bit of a smile that pulled at his face. When he’s finished, he automatically puts half of the food in tupperware and into the fridge, dividing the rest equally into two plates. He does not know the last time Stark ate, so he figures that two servings is likely safe. 

“Can you tell Stark that there is a plate in the microwave for him? Tell him what time it is, too. Dunno when he last ate or slept,” Barnes says, his gaze directed at the ground as he tries not to feel immediate shame for having cooked for someone. It seems invasive now that it’s done, as if he has any business telling Stark when to eat or sleep or generally take care of himself. He likely has better habits that Barnes, though that’s not a particularly ringing endorsement. He’s about to go eat in his room when Friday interrupts him. 

“Boss has asked to speak with you while you eat, if you wouldn’t mind,” Friday relays, and Barnes freezes. He contemplates whether or not he should stay, weighing his options before putting his plate down. He settles onto one of the bar stools off of the kitchen island, tapping his fingers against the table. He won’t eat until Stark gets here if he’s joining; it’s not polite. His fingers tap harder until he hears Stark step out of the elevator, at which point all noise stops. He waits for a moment until Stark enters the room. 

“Goddamn, Yuletide, who died?” Stark asks, snagging the free plate out of the microwave and sitting down on the stool on the far end of the island from Barnes. That’s fair. It’s the same choice Barnes would likely make if he had been the second to sit down. Barnes doesn’t bother to answer the question. 

“Quesadillas?” he says, offers, it doesn’t matter. Stark looks at the plate and then looks at him, so Barnes cuts himself out a bite from one of Stark’s top quesadilla, popping it into his mouth. He chews and swallows all while making eye contact with the other man, nodding at him once. Stark nods back and picks up his own knife and fork, digging in. Barnes follows suit with some semblance of a smile. 

“Any chance you made coffee?” Stark asks, eyebrow raised. Barnes indicates his head to the coffeemaker, in which ten cups still remain. Barnes always feels bad for making an entire pot knowing that he’ll only drink two or three cups before he gets bored. It’ll be better if Stark drinks a good portion of it, as he knows Stark is wont to do. Caffeine addiction is a footnote in the other man’s file, something that would amuse Barnes if he was in any kind of way to be amused by such small things. Stark flashes the ghost of a grin and dives for the coffeemaker, seeming to pull a coffee mug from nowhere as he pours himself a cup, drinking a sip of it black. Barnes wrinkles his nose. 

“You drink coffee black?” he says, a slip that he didn’t mean to admit curiosity to, but Stark smiles. Barnes doesn’t mind himself for slipping so much when Stark is smiling, when there’s a color of genuine amusement on Stark’s face. 

“You don’t?” Stark asks in return, and Barnes is beginning to think that the raised eyebrow is a simple disposition, as if Stark cannot pull himself out of that expression. They eat the rest of their meal in relative silence, Barnes making a gesture to turn back on his show and Stark nodding. They watch the rest of the episode of Criminal Minds even if they finish eating twenty minutes before the episode is over, Stark sipping at coffee and Barnes finishing three bottles of water. He has come to like water, just drinking something clean and tasteless and calming. At the end of the show, Stark turns to him and seems to contemplate him for a moment before moving to stand. 

“Come to my workshop with me, Terminator. I’ve got somethin’ to show you,” Stark says, and Barnes stands. There doesn’t seem to be a choice when Stark puts things like that, not in a way that Barnes finds revolting, but instead in a way that feels natural. 

“What is it?” Barnes asks, though he also did not mean to say that. Stark seems to pull out the lack of impulse control in Barnes, the parts that scream of being Steve Rogers’s best friend, but that is not something Barnes would like to contemplate. Instead, he gives an almost smile as Stark turns on his heel to give Barnes a look. There is a presence to Stark that is not explained by the physical; Tony Stark is 5’6 in the padded shoes he normally wears, three to four inches shorter than Barnes, but he feels bigger, more naturally large in himself. Barnes finds himself cowed by that presence, but also made to feel safer by it. He knows that Stark will not let anything happen. 

“Can’t even wait a minute, can you? You’ll ruin a perfectly good surprise someday,” Stark remarks, throwing a smirk into his half-glare that both softens and hardens his expression. Barnes tries not to analyse too hard, tries to retract into himself, but it’s already so difficult. Friday has been reading him articles about body language analytics recently, and it’s showing already in how his interactions with other people are going. 

“Alright,” Barnes agrees, nodding once as they get into the elevator. Stark is bouncing like a child, excited, and Barnes wonders what he’s got to show off, what exactly requires the presence of Barnes at all. 

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. 


	4. off-season

It’s an arm. It’s the arm that Barnes lost, except that it’s better and slimmer and shinier and comes with a stealth option and Barnes does not know how to speak. Barnes has forgotten every language he has ever known and all of the ones he could learn and he’s forgotten how to breathe. His breaths come harder and he’s beginning to panic and Stark’s hands are on his shoulders and Barnes  _ cannot hurt him, cannot hurt him, cannot hurt him.  _ Barnes cannot hurt Stark, cannot damage the one physical person he has in this dimly lit future and he breathes, he focuses, he thinks. He pushes out the panic and pulls back in the fragile sense of calm that he had collected in cooking. He looks Stark in the face and the calm is back, it’s pulling itself back over him. 

“- doesn’t have to be today, doesn’t have to happen at all. I mean, if you didn’t want an arm, you could have just said, this is just a general use prosthetic, not some super strength metal monstrosity, but I was waiting to augment it with strength until I knew you wanted one. Which, doesn’t have to be a thing, I promise,” Stark rambles, still keeping his hands on Barnes’s shoulders, but more stroking than holding him in place now. Barnes sits down on the nearest workbench while keeping Stark within his orbit, not pulling away. He likes having Stark close, he thinks, likes having someone close. It’s strange for someone to be so close without the intention of harm. 

“Stark,” Barnes interrupts, “Thank you.” The statement of gratitude seems to shock Stark to his very core, throw him directly off balance like no one had ever said it before. Stark had built tools for the Avengers for years, had built them all kinds of armors and weapons and too many things for Stark to be so shocked by this tiny little bit of kindness that Barnes offers in meager return for such a gift. Barnes hates to think about how the Avengers must have acted toward Stark for him to be so surprised, but that’s not a thought for the time. Stark tries to cover his surprise with a bit of disgust, throwing in a teenage scoff that looks comical on a nearly middle aged man. 

“I’m not Howard. Call me Tony, not Stark,” S-Tony demands, teasing, as he looks back at the projections of the arm. Projections of the inside, the stealth mode, the functionalities and the joints are all on display in front of the two of them, the actual arm sitting on a work table. Tony looks between the arm and Barnes once and Barnes caves. 

“I don’t want a full strength. Maybe as strong as my other arm,  _ maybe.  _ I don’t want a super strength metal monstrosity either,” he admits, eyes on the floor. There’s some shame in not wanting to be as strong as he once was, but he does not want to destroy. He never wants to be a weapon for anyone again. He’ll protect Tony, protect Friday, protect himself, but he’ll never be a weapon. Stark taps his shoulder. 

“That’s alright, Buck. You don’t have to,” Tony says, and Barnes flinches out of his skin. He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that at all. Tony is a safe space. Tony is safe. Barnes is not Bucky. Barnes is  _ not -  _

“Hey, soldier boy, you’re gonna have to tell me what I did wrong. Is it Bucky? I don’t have to call you that. Whatever you want, soldier, I promise,” Tony interrupts his panicking thoughts, a hand on Barnes’s shoulder again, smoothing and soothing. Barnes looks at him and gives him the closest thing to a smile he’s given anyone but Friday in at least the last ten years, if not since training Talia. 

“Barnes,” he offers, “I like to be called Barnes.” Tony frowns and his brows crease together, something between concern and disgust taking over his features. 

“Come on, soldier, this isn’t a military hovel. This is a McMansion. I’m not in the business of calling people by their last names. You sure that’s what you want? Not gonna take James for a spin, or even Jamie? Jim? Jimbo? Jem?” Stark offers, making Barnes take pause. He had never considered, even for a moment, claiming his first name rather than the name that Captain America told him was his. He considers it now, looking to the floor again as to depart himself from the subject of the conversation. 

“You don’t have to choose now, icyhot,” Stark says, dipping his head to match the height of Barnes, who is still sat on the workbench. 

“I… want to think about it. Barnes, for now, still,” Barnes answers, brows still furrowed.

“And that’s a-okay. The arm is ready to be installed whenever you want - that arm is based on your measurements, so if you let me take a look at the engagement on your shoulder, it should be relatively quick,” Tony says. His voice is much softer than it was upstairs when they were eating, when Barnes had been of relative normalcy rather than a panicky mess. 

“Can - can it wait?” Barnes asks, cringing internally at the way he asks, the way that he needs time and needs to wait for this gift that Tony is willing to give him. Tony smiles and nods, offering him a hand up. 

“You know what I think you need? I have someone you need to meet,” Tony says, and then he’s helping Barnes up, dragging him over to one of the corners of the workshop. Barnes finds himself almost smiling at the antics of a grown man, but that’s not something anyone but Friday needs to know. Barnes drops to his knees when they get to who Tony wants to introduce him to, already enamoured with what’s in front of him. 

“Hi,” he says softly, using the tone he knows that Bucky once used for dogs, but Barnes is talking to a robot, a robot with one arm that makes humming noises and rubs itself against his face. 

“That’s Dum-e. That’s U, and that’s Butterfingers,” Tony introduces, pointing to each of them with their names. Barnes gets closer to the others and makes noises at them as well, completely losing himself in the bots. They all seem to take to him pretty well, Dum-e humming in confusion and sympathy at Barnes’s missing arm. 

“Lost it a while ago,” Barnes explains softly, shortly, completely without blaming the man who brought him here in the first place. It’s not Tony’s fault. Tony climbs into the floor with him, grumbling about achy, old knees, and Barnes lets loose of a small laugh. It’s his first laugh, he thinks, and that is suddenly very sad. He doesn’t let the sadness ruin this moment, but it does sober him of the laughter. 

“Kids these days,” Tony remarks, and Barnes laughs even more. 

“I’m more than twice your age, old man,” he replies, rolling his eyes. It’s a tiny piece of attitude that feels like freedom, and it’s all Tony’s fault. Even with the anxiety and the rebelling of his mind that’s happened since he entered the workshop, Barnes feels more at ease here. As if reading his mind, Tony speaks. 

“You can come hang out in here, if you want. I know you have Friday to keep you company, but if you ever want someone around. Ever wanna talk,” Tony trails off, shrugging a shoulder as if to say that it doesn’t matter to Tony whether Barnes does it or not. Barnes nods. He does want to come in, does want to see the bots, does want to talk to Tony. He’s discovering that he just may want it all. 

“Boss? You have a call from Mister Keener,” Friday announces, breaking the mood open with her casual calm. Tony bolts up, looking more excited than Barnes has ever seen him as he free runs across the shop. It’s amazing how agile he is as he sweeps past what seems like a thousand inventions, carefully avoiding all of them. Barnes knows that he was raised by Howard and Maria Stark, but also by Edwin Jarvis, with influences by Peggy Carter. It’s something to ponder, how much Peggy Carter had to do with the way Tony grew up. It’s a thought that Barnes let's bounce around his mind as he watches Tony pick up his cell phone, sliding open the call and holding the phone at an angle away from his face. It must be a video call. 

“Harls!” Tony answers the call excitedly, his free hand doing a sort of flapping motion. It’s not an emotional response that Barnes has memorized, but he likes Tony more for it. It’s… cute, in a way. If Barnes finds anything cute. 

“Sup, old man?” the teenage boy on the other side says, managing to sound bored when faced with excited Tony Stark. Tony puts on an obviously fake expression of exasperation, sighing at this  _ Harls  _ person. Barnes plays with Dum-e, U and Butterfingers in the meantime, sparing only a bit of his concentration on what is obviously a social call for Tony. Barnes had been unaware of any children in the man’s life, but he supposes that he doesn’t know  _ everything  _ about the Stark heir. It shouldn’t surprise him so much as it does. The hum of conversation continues for a while before Barnes tunes back in, paying attention only to the rise and fall of Tony’s voice rather than the words. 

“I knew you were gonna say that! You know why?” Tony asks, and it distracts Barnes because, frankly, it’s odd. And he sounds so excited. And excited looks good on him. But that’s not the point. 

“If you say it’s because we’re fucking connected -” the kid starts, but Tony interrupts. 

“Language, Harley Sunshine State Keener! Also, it’s because we’re fucking connected!” Tony replies, looking giddy. Barnes furrows his eyebrows and Tony mouths  _ I’ll explain later.  _

“I was nine, Tony! Anyway - see! That’s the shit I’m talking about!” Harley says, “Looking off to the side! Saying shit! I know Pepper dumped your dumbass last year, so who are you talking to? I know Friday knows that story, so don’t bullshit me, old man!” Barnes nearly laughs as Tony’s eyes get wide, his free hand coming up to cover his mouth, and Barnes crosses the room to stand near Tony. He raises an eyebrow to ask for permission (which is freely given) before stepping into frame. Harley looks between the two of them flatly. 

“Now, kiddo, let me explain what’s going on when you come up here,” Tony requests, sounding awfully like he’s doing terrorist negotiations. Harley continues with his flat look and uses the hand not holding the phone (which looks to be covered in motor oil, or something of the sort) to scrub it down his face. 

“Tony, that’s the fucking Winter Soldier. Tony. Tony, what the fuck?” Harley asks, looking more disappointed than anything else, and Barnes smiles. He opens his mouth but Harley seems to realise he has more to say. 

“And another thing! Stop doing the middle name shit! You insufferable - sorry, Mom! I’m on the phone with Tony! I’ll be down in a second!” Harley raises his voice for the last bit, making Barnes cringe. 

“Looks like you have to go, little one! I’ll see you next week! Behave for your mother,” Tony says before ending the call, freezing on a frame of Harley’s disgruntled and angry looking face. Barnes raises his eyebrows at Tony.  _ Next week?  _

“Did I mention that I sometimes have two kids? They’re not really my kids! That one is Harley, he’s from Tennessee and I’ve known him since he was nine, he saved my life, yada yada, so and so. The other one is Peter, and he lives in New York and doesn’t leave the state much, but he might come see us when he hears Harley is gonna be here for a month. They have a weird thing. But anyway, Harley always comes for the entire month of November, because being able to skip a few months of school out of the year is part of his agreement to not skip so many grades. But yeah. Teenagers come see me occasionally. Do you need to get the hell outta Dodge for that?” Tony explains, offers, says, but Barnes just smiles something soft and shakes his head. 

“I better learn to cook a lot for teenage boys,” is all he replies, and the way Tony is smiling is definitely worth it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by the way, if you want any of the recipes for the foods mentioned in this fic, i do have links to them all!


	5. thorn

It’s Sunday when Harley arrives. He’s hauling two suitcases and a duffle bag over his shoulder, more to stay for a month than Barnes had brought to stay forever. He’s also cursing a blue streak as he climbs the stairs, denying the driver’s honest requests to help, and Barnes steps outside naturally. He takes one of the suitcases out of Harley’s hands and gives the kid a deadpan look when he opens his mouth back up, making Harley roll his eyes. Barnes gives a bit of a grin. 

“Fine, Jimmy One Arm. Where’s the old guy?” Harley asks, walking past Barnes to leave his shit on the couch in the front foyer. There are several seating arrangements in the expansive room, but only one couch that looks like it has the wear and tear of a teenage boy occasionally crashing into it. Barnes supposes that it’s where Harley does most of his relaxing, if not on the workshop couch. Both of the teenagers apparently love to be in the workshop, Harley for mechanical engineering reasons and Peter for more biological prosthetics reasons, but Barnes simply knows that they’re both much smarter than he is. 

“You’re looking at the oldest guy in the house. If you’re lookin’ for Tony, he’s in the ‘shop,” Barnes says, giving a vague gesture of his head toward the elevator. Harley nods, but instead of following in that direction, he just gives Barnes a look. 

“Tony says you cook. Got any food?” he asks, head tilted in a way that reminds Barnes of Tony, and maybe they really are connected. Barnes nods and leads the kid to the kitchen, not really even making a ‘come with me’ gesture, just trusting that Harley will come. The kid does follow, and immediately jumps up to sit on a counter when the opportunity presents itself. Sincerely, the kid is just Tony in a much younger hat. 

“We have quesadillas from last week, we have spaghetti, we have sesame grilled tofu, we have soy chicken piquant, and we have a little bit of tomato basil salmon,” Barnes says, pulling out bags and containers and setting them on the counter next to Harley. Harley looks through them and his eyebrows furrow, tilting his head at Barnes once again. 

“Did the old man tell you that I’m a pescetarian?” Harley asks, and it’s Barnes’s turn to be confused. 

“No, Tony did not. I don’t know that word,” Barnes admits, biting his lip. Harley seems to take pity on him and gestures at the food. 

“This? Is all pescetarian friendly. I eat fish and shrimp and ocean shit, but I don’t eat meat. I drink milk and eat eggs and shit, but again - no meat. And it’s actually all super nice food, too. You did all this?” the kid asks, parsing through the food again. Barnes nods again but still feels confused. He did… good? He’s doing okay? He doesn’t know how to deal with confirmation from anyone other than Tony and Friday, and he automatically adds this child to his hoard of future people. Harley is a friend of the future, and he is protected just so much as any of Barnes’s other friends of the future are. 

“Oh,” Barnes says, but it doesn’t matter how he replies to that, because Harley is hopping off the counter and popping the quesadillas container into the microwave. 

“That smells fucking good, Barnes,” Harley compliments. Tony walks in directly after that comment, first scrubbing a sleep hand over his face and stumbling over to the coffeemaker. He seems to notice that Harley is there about halfway there at which point he does a sort of shuffle between wanting to go for caffeine and wanting to go for Harley. 

“I’ve got the coffee,” Barnes says, and Tony makes a beeline for Harley. 

“Thanks, Snowflake. Harls! You’re here, kiddo. How’s school? How are things? Tell me  _ everything,”  _ Tony rushes, hopping up onto the counter where Harley had just been. Tony looks through the food that’s there as well, holding up the container of soy chicken piquant up with a look at Barnes. Barnes rolls his eyes and takes it from his hands, popping it into the microwave as he takes Harley’s food out. 

“Gimme, gimme, gimme,” Harley says, making grabby hands. He’s on the counter again as well, though he’s on the island, sitting just across a walkway from Tony so that they can look at each other. Barnes leans against the wall after handing Harley his food and some utensils, letting the two of them get their talking out of the way. He hands Tony’s food to him as well when it’s done, another fork stuck into it. Tony looks at Barnes, interrupting his conversation with Harley for a moment. 

“You gonna eat with us or just stand there, soldier?” Tony asks, his smile just edged with a bit of teasing, and Barnes shrugs. 

“I might just watch. Never know what you can learn,” he replies, giving a bit of a teasing expression of his own. Tony raises an eyebrow and is about to reply before he dips his head, listening to what Harley is about to say. 

“Right in front of my fucking salad?” Harley grumbles, and Tony spits out a bite of his soy chicken, seemingly shocked. 

“That is a quesadilla,” Barnes says, confused, but Tony makes a  _ no  _ motion across his throat. 

“It actually means -” Harley starts, but Tony interrupts, jumping off of the counter to place his hand directly over Harley’s mouth. Barnes worries after the way that it may have impacted Tony’s ankles, shins and knees, but the other man seems completely unworried by his own physical condition. Well, except the fact that Harley is licking the palm of his hand, which Tony tears away from the kid’s mouth in disgust. Barnes isn’t even that well verse in adult human or child behavior, but he could have predicted that one. In fact, he had, and he is one step away from calling it out before Tony rushes into speaking. 

“That little tidbit means that me and Harley Bocephus Keener over here need to have a talk! We’ll be right back,” Tony says. The man attempts to pull Harley off of the counter, who immediately buckles himself in for the long haul. Barnes thinks it’s more out of stubbornness than an actual unwillingness to be dragged away to speak, but it entertains Barnes personally no less for it. 

“Stop coming for my middle name!” Harley says, shoving at Tony before allowing himself to be dragged off of the counter. He knocks his shoulder against Tony’s and the older man shoves him back, laughing. They’re disappearing down the hallway, but Barnes still hears Tony’s response. 

“You named yourself and chose the middle name  _ John!  _ You deserve this!” Tony snipes, and Barnes smiles to himself. He doesn’t really understand what Tony just said, but he moves about himself anyway; not understanding things seems to be half of the fun of the future. Meanwhile, before they get back, he may as well cook himself something. Cooking is much more fun than eating, so the leftovers are usually more for Tony (and now Harley) rather than Barnes himself. He goes for something simple, pulling out one of the small copper pans and the eggs, along with the salt and pepper. Easy over eggs should be fine, along with some hot sauce and guacamole premade in the fridge. Sounds good enough. 

“Now, shut up, young man, and eat your lunch,” Tony is saying as he comes back into the room as Barnes is going to flip his third and final egg. Tony cheers as Barnes slides the third egg into his bowl, ready to be mixed together. Barnes rolls his eyes and catches the motion as Harley does the same, catching the kid’s eye. He makes a gesture as if to say  _ get a load of this guy,  _ and smiles back at Harley when it budges some amusement out of the kid. A dollop of guac and about a tablespoon of hot sauce later, and the yolks in his eggs are broken and spread around. He’s discovered a liking for eggs that he didn’t expect.

“Why are you having breakfast for lunch?” Harley asks, not as if he’s condemning the practice but more like Tony’s scientific curiosity. 

“Time is a construct and nothing matters?” Barnes offers. It’s an answer he’s learned from Tony upon requesting that the other man eats or sleeps at certain times, even when Barnes knew it wasn’t his place to ask. Harley just nods sagely as if this is the common motto of all engineers, and Barnes would bet that it is. Engineers, even according to the internet, have a kind of energy to them that Barnes thinks is just called chaos. 

“Is that guac? Can I have a bite of that?” Tony asks, looking over Barnes’s shoulder as the man eats. He hadn’t realised that his back was to the counter near Tony, but it’s obvious now. He’s currently standing so close that it’s not hard to lean far enough for Tony to get a fork in his food, picking up some guac and some egg with ease. When Barnes looks at Harley, the kid is pointedly not looking at them. 

“Howzit?” Barnes asks quietly, not really doubting his own ability to make eggs, but still wanting of Tony’s opinion. Tony takes another bite and hums, setting his own food down for a moment to give Barnes a thumbs up. Barnes smiles and rolls his eyes, digging back into his own food. It has to be set on the counter for him to eat with just one hand, but that’s okay with him. It’s right next to Tony’s hip, and it gives Barnes an excuse for the closeness he has found himself craving since the day Tony showed him the arm. The intimacy that had calmed Barnes during his panic just makes him feel safer now, feel less likely to do anything to cause harm to Tony or Harley or both of them. He would never. 

“You two are insufferable. I’m gonna drop my shit in my room. Be ready to science when I get out, Mechanic,” Harley says, sliding off the counter and putting his used dishes in the sink with abandon. Barnes knows that the kid won’t wash them, but he somehow doesn’t mind. Harley is just a teenager, and teenagers are just like this. 

“We’re insufferable?” Tony asks beneath his breath anyway, and Barnes snorts, catching Tony’s attention. Tony jostles his shoulder playfully and leans forward to look at him closer, making Barnes’s senses hum with their proximity. He likes to be close to Tony, and it’s showing now in how the soldier leans a little closer, takes just a little more than he’s given, though he holds himself back from going too close. He holds himself closely from touching when he isn’t invited, because he is not that man. But, he can talk and he can lean in close and the warmth can be there, even if Barnes himself cannot.  

“Was that a snort?” the genius asks, like he doesn’t know what a snort sounds like, and Barnes is rolling his eyes all over again. 

“No. I choked on air,” he says in deadpan, raising an eyebrow in challenge. Their faces are hardly a foot from each other, both of them with teasing looks of challenge, just on the knife’s edge of flirtation. There’s a closeness to them that is more than physical, more than the heart beat that Barnes can feel in his throat, and he almost feels lightheaded. He doesn’t recall ever being this close to someone in a non-lethal way, even the intimate memories of Bucky Barnes paling in comparison to this strange moment of space, this thing that Barnes cannot describe for the life of him. A door slams down the hall but neither of them move, too stuck in the actions they had already chosen. 

“Come fucking on!” Harley says as he walks back into the kitchen, throwing his hands up in something akin to defeat. 


	6. constant

Tony has installed a separate work out area in the lab. He already had a bar for chin ups, but now there’s a weight bench and a punching bag that appeared under mysterious circumstances several days ago. Tony had laughed when Harley had just raised an eyebrow at it, but Barnes likes it. He likes that he doesn’t have to leave his charges while making sure he’s still fit enough to take care of them, though Tony cracks jokes about the inability of Barnes’s muscles to get any larger. 

Peter comes in two weeks, staying through until the day before Christmas Eve, which is coincidentally when Harley leaves; Harley negotiated December as well as November through teleconference, and it is a wonder to Barnes that the child doesn’t get every single thing he wants. Barnes is the former Winter Soldier, and even he is learning how to say no to the mixture of cold logic and puppy dog eyes that Harley puts forth in his arguments. According to Tony, he will be even more of a menace when Peter arrives, darting back and forth between teaming up with Peter and pranking the poor boy. 

Barnes does not know Peter yet, but there is a soft lilt in Tony’s voice and a light blush on Harley’s face when the high schooler is mentioned, so Barnes already feels a sort of instinct for protection. 

“Barnes can you come here a sec? I need a spare hand,” Harley calls across the lab, barely looking up from his project. Barnes doesn’t really know what either Harley or Tony are working on, but he likes to watch occasionally. They are both working independently (with some interruption from Friday or the bots), despite Tony’s insistence that Harley’s worth was in what he could do for Tony’s projects. Barnes can tell that he just wants Harley to have all the toys at Tony’s disposal, and it pleases Barnes in a way that Tony is so insistent upon sharing them. Peter is likely going to be in the same vein. 

“What do you need?” Barnes asks as he reaches Harley’s side, nodding as Harley just makes a gesture toward the metal cover of the box he needs open. Occasionally, Harley admits to needing help opening things. Harley holds down the bottom of the box while Barnes uses brute strength to prise it open, succeedingly after a few seconds of active pressure. Harley shoots him a grin and nods, which Barnes takes as his invitation to return to his spot on the couch. Dum-e comes to put his claw on Barnes’s lap, which Barnes pets absentmindedly. He holds Dum-e a little when Tony sets something on fire, knowing that the bot will run for the extinguisher. Tony puts it out on his own, and the bot stops struggling. 

“Thanks, Barnes,” Tony says, sending him a nod of appreciation. Barnes nods back and loses time for a while, dissociating in a way that doesn’t even begin to worry him; it’s not the unhealthy kind he used to engage in, the kind that separated him from his own person. Instead, he separates himself from the world, wandering off in his thoughts. He checks the floor plans in his mind, checks his internal clock for the time. When it next occurs to him to move, it’s about time enough for lunch. 

“Lunch is in thirty minutes. Come to the kitchen or I’ll come get you myself,” Barnes says before he walks out, not sparing a look for the engineering geniuses. They’ll come by themselves. Last time that Barnes had commanded the two of them to come for lunch and they’d been even a minute late, Barnes had stormed the lab. He carried Tony over his shoulder with Harley following, running an amused commentary and avoiding the bits of paper Tony threw at him in retaliation. Barnes gives the memory a half smile before he comes back into himself, picking his tablet up off of the kitchen counter. 

“What’s the next recipe on my list, Friday?” he asks, to which the AI pulls up a recipe from Allrecipes for homemade black bean veggie burgers. He nods and follows through the motions of the recipe. The advisement says that the recipe will take thirty minutes, but Barnes knows their ovens; Tony had fiddled with them saying something about  _ efficiency,  _ and basically made them into something like a constant convection oven without all of the texture ruining steaminess. There are two ovens stacked on top of one another built into the wall, something that Barnes especially appreciates when he wants to make more than one thing. He preheats both ovens, one for the veggie burgers and one for sweet potato fries. 

He and Tony seem to agree on a preference for sweet potatoes rather than their more starchy counterpart. Harley’s opinion is ignored on the virtue of him being a heathen who will dip them in ketchup either way. 

He finishes up the actual cooking portion at about the same time as Tony and Harley come spilling into the kitchen, looking as if they were play fighting on the way in. They tend to do that, tripping each other and then tripping over each other, and Barnes gives them a look of fond exasperation. Tony looks at least a little repentant (approximately 12%), but Harley just sticks out his tongue, sticking up both of his middle fingers at Barnes, who is frankly surprised Harley didn’t do more. More than once, the kid has flipped him off with both hands and said  _ You’re not my real dad!  _ which confused Barnes to no end. 

“Ready to eat?” Barnes asks, tilting his head in the direction of the plates he’s already laid out. There’s something called a  _ sandwich thin  _ on Harley’s plate, apparently what he’s used to at his own house, a regular hamburger bun on Barnes’s own plate, and something that has seeds sticking out of it on Tony’s plate. Barnes remembers the preferences because it’s his job, and one he takes very seriously, one he takes a lot of pride in. The sweet potato fries (which are actually waffle fries) are set in the center of the table, along with Tony’s barbecue sauce, Harley’s ketchup and the honey mustard that Barnes prefers. 

“Fuck yes, I’m so hungry,” Harley says as he slides into his chair, touching the bread on his plate to make sure that Barnes didn’t forget his mayonnaise (which he never does). Barnes grins when Harley pulls back a finger covered in mayonnaise, which makes Tony break into laughter as well. Tony, because he doesn’t know what self control tastes like, adds barbecue sauce to his bread as well, spreading it with a waffle fry that he plucks from the bowl before grabbing a handful. Barnes has stone ground mustard on his burger buns already, and he puts a leaf of lettuce on top of his burger as well. 

“We’re so spoiled,” Tony stage whispers to Harley from across the table, making the teenager roll his eyes, immediately followed by a shrug of his shoulders. 

“I mean, yeah. Dunno how I’m gonna go back to my mom’s food after a month and a half here,” Harley admits at regular speaking volume, completely ignoring the way that Tony seems to want to be undercover. Tony sighs and rolls his eyes as well, looking as much of a teenager as Harley does, if with a few more greys. 

“You’re likely not interested in learning, but, if you like, I can have Friday forward the recipes to your mother,” Barnes offers, not realising how the other two are staring until he looks up from his food again. He sets down his burger and wipes off his hand, looking between the two of them wearily. There is rarely a good thing coming when he has the direct attention of both of them, seeing as he’s been pranked, poked and prodded since Harley’s gotten here. Having Harley around seems to make Tony more comfortable to joke around with Barnes more, but that’s not the point. The point is the expression the two of them share as they look at Barnes, one of complete surprise. Maybe they really are connected. 

“What?” he asks levelly, looking between them still. Tony speaks first. 

“You’re willing to teach?” Tony asks, head tilted and looking everyday like a puppy. Barnes hardly knows why he knows the exact tilt of a puppy’s head, doesn’t remember how Bucky would know that, but he moves on. He nods, eyes narrowing, unsure of the reasoning behind the confusion. 

“We thought you wouldn’t wanna teach us! We’ve literally talked about this, because it seems like so much work for you, taking care of us all the time, but we didn’t want to bother you!” Harley rambles out, sounding a strange mix of excited and teetering on the edge of careful with how he doesn’t want to offend Barnes, for some reason. It’s not easy for Barnes to generate feelings of offense, but it’s kind of Harley to make accommodations for things that Barnes  _ could  _ feel, even if he doesn’t now. 

“I don’t mind taking care of the two of you. I like doing it. It is an interest of mine. However, if either of you would like to learn, I certainly wouldn’t mind teaching. Cooking with both hands is something you will have to adapt to on your own, but I can teach one handed,” Barnes explains slowly. There’s another communal look of confusion, but this one doesn’t last so long as the first. Tony seems to start out of it first, shaking his head and looking back down at his food. 

“It’s supposed to wait until Peter gets here - the kid is great with biomechanics, that kinda thing, I want him to check over my work - but we can install your arm whenever you want. If that’s still something you want, of course. Harley has been looking over the mechanical designs, the engineering bits of the arm, any parts of it that look vaguely like the insides of a car,” Tony says, the last bit coming off as a bit of a tease on Harley, to which the teenager throws a waffle fry directly at his mentor’s head. Tony, being an actual child, retaliates by throw a fry of his own. 

“Children,” Barnes interrupts, and Harley stops mid throw. He then looks angry at himself for stopping at someone’s command, but he doesn’t continue with the throw, so Barnes counts it as a win. “The arm can wait if you absolutely need Peter’s consideration, but the arm is still something that I want,” he informs, taking a look at Tony’s face to make sure it’s not something that will bring stress to the other man. Instead, both Tony and Harley seem to take that as a cue to begin eating much faster than before, rushing through their meal. Neither of them seem to see fit to explain  _ why  _ to Barnes, so he just goes with it. 

He does that a lot these days. 

They eat the rest of their meal in silence, Barnes watching in an amused fashion as the engineers shove food into their mouths. Harley finishes his burger first and bangs on the table, startling Barnes; he hadn’t been aware that it was a competition between the two of them. He then starts in voraciously on his fries; Tony is half done with both his fries and his burger, but Harley had been focusing solely on his burger in the time since. Tony finishes the last bites of his burger (after his fries) just as Harley kills his last fry. Harley makes urgent noises through his food, trying to prove his win without words, as does Tony, because the man is actually also just a child. Barnes smiles. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to declare it a tie,” he announces, to which both of the engineers groan. “Sucks to suck,” he says, an adage he had picked up from Harley. It always makes the teenager laugh when Barnes uses it, which is just more of a reason to throw it around. Harley hops out of his seat excitedly, collecting all of the plates and setting them in the sink. Huh. So something Barnes is teaching him is getting through that thick skull of his, even with all of the bad behavior and technological genius that Tony is cramming into that boy’s head along with it. 

“Come on, Barnes, let’s go make you Jimmy Two Arms! Come on!” he says, already running off to the lab without waiting for either of the adults to follow him. Tony’s eyes are wide, already looking like he has half an apology planned out in his head. Barnes holds up a staying hand, offering a smile. 

“He called me Jimmy One Arm before he even made it in the house on the first day he got here. I don’ mind, Tony. He’s a funny kid,” he assuages, which seems to calm Tony down considerably. He can almost see the gears turning in Tony’s head as the genius switches subjects, so Barnes is expecting the complete topic change. It’s always so easy to read Tony, to see where he’s going and come along for the ride. Barnes likes that about him, even if it should put him off, how earnest Tony’s face is. 

“Have you thought more about your name?” Tony asks, making Barnes raise his eyebrows. He’s only thought about it a little, but the fact that he’s comfortable with any Jim or James related nicknames that spill out of Harley’s mouth influences him a little bit. He shrugs his shoulders. 

“You think I look like a James?” 


	7. atmosphere

James has had a second arm for two weeks, and he’s decided that he likes the name James. He likes to be something that Bucky would never even consider being, something that the man who held this body before him hated. The new arm is sleek metal as to not startle James too much with the newness of having two flesh arms, and Harley loves to mess with it whenever James is still enough to let him. Harley is still on the train of calling James  _ Jimmy,  _ which James figures he should mind, but he doesn’t. Tony admonishes the teenager every single time he hears it, but James figures that’s more of an excuse to bug Harley than a jump to James’s defense. 

Peter comes today. James almost feels as if his life since leaving Wakanda is a series of arrivals, first of Tony’s on the roof of that building, then of his own arrival to meeting Friday, then Harley’s raucous entrance. He’s making homemade pizza for Peter’s arrival, which Harley has been under his elbow about ever since the dough started. 

“So, what are we putting on the pizza? Do you grease the pan? Do you do tomato sauce first? I’ve seen these videos on facebook where they do the cheese first because it makes the crust crispier and -” James grabs Harley’s gesticulating hands. He raises his eyebrows at the teenager, attempting to communicate his exasperation through facial expression alone. Harley flashes him a grin. 

“Dude,” James says, trying the word on for size. It’s what Tony says when Harley is fucking something up in the lab, being reckless, when Tony isn’t actively encouraging and participating in such actions. Harley sags a little and takes his wrists back, easily able to pull out of James’s loose grip. 

“I’m just nervous,” Harley admits, biting his lip and looking down. Tony likes to poke fun at the little thing that Harley has for Peter, but James is beginning to think that it’s not so little of a crush. James struggles for what to say, what to do in this situation, because he barely knows how to deal with his own feelings, romantic or otherwise, let alone how to advise a teenager about another teenager, one that James has never met. Instead of using words that he knows will fail, James goes for something he knows works: he hugs Harley. Harley loves physical affection more than most anyone James can remember, and the kid just sinks into James like he isn’t something dangerous. 

“It’s okay to be nervous, kid. Just go invent something. Changing the world always makes you feel better,” James teases, putting his hand on the back of Harley’s head to pull him closer for a moment. Harley squeezes him around the middle before pulling back, shaking himself out of the embrace. He nods as if James has given him an order, and James actually smiles at the caricature of a soldier. 

“Aye aye, Sarg. Just, let me know when he gets here?” Harley asks, the first bit coming out faux confident with a snippy salute, but the last showing Harley’s nerves again. James nods and ruffles the kid’s hair, to which Harley squawks. 

“You got it, kiddo. Now get out of my kitchen,” James replies, shoving Harley softly away. Harley grins and flips him off.

“I thought you were down to teach!” the kid teases as he walks down the hallway, still flipping James the bird over his shoulder. James rolls his eyes and goes back to his pizza dough, which has already proofed for the recommended amount of time, and it’s just time to add shit now. It’s natural to flip back and forth between the recipe and the actual dish now, for as long as James has been cooking everyday, first for two people and now for three. He has extensive lists of everything Harley and Tony even have an  _ aversion  _ to, let alone an allergy or an inability to consume. 

The cheese for the pizza is lactose free, which he is about 95% sure was not a thing when Bucky was around. 

The pizza has been in the oven for ten minutes (with fifteen minutes left) when the doorbell rings. The boys won’t hear it in the lab, so James puts his hand towel down on the counter and walks to the entryway, looking through the stained glass panes of the door before he opens it. It looks like a teenage boy, brown hair like Tony said, shorter than James but not by too much. He opens the door and Peter immediately drop his suitcase, looking up at James with an expression of shock. 

“You’re - you’re the Winter Soldier, man. How’s your arm?” Peter stumbles through, and James immediately recognises the voice. Peter is the child who runs around in the spider suit that isn’t nearly safe enough for their line of work. He is added to James’s hoard almost before James even processes what he said. James waves the fingers of his new left hand at Peter before picking up the suitcase Peter brought, raising his eyebrows at the absolute weight of it. Peter must also be enhanced. 

“And you’re the Spiderman. Welcome to the mansion,” James replies, taking Peter’s suitcase to the room that Tony has marked for the kid. James has been in Harley’s room exactly once since his arrival, and only to come catch a spider that Harley absolutely could not deal with on his own. This will likely be the only time he’s in Peter’s room at all; he likes to let everyone have their privacy on the assumption that they will continue to let him have his, and so far it’s worked out. Harley always knocks on his door if he needs attention or food, never comes in and makes the space his own. It’s nothing like the brief stint that James spent staying in the same area as Captain Rogers, and he’s more thankful for that than he knows how to speak. 

“Where’s Mr. Stark? Is he okay? Did I come on the wrong day? Is -” Peter cuts himself off, and based on the way he turns pink, James can guess that the question isn’t about Tony. He sets the suitcase down on Peter’s bed and turns around, flashing Peter his first semblance of a smile. 

“Tony and Harley are in the lab. Grab them, would you? Lunch will be ready in about five minutes,” James requests before he leaves Peter standing there. Peter is obviously flabbergasted and something in James takes a kind of pleasure at that, if only because it makes him laugh. Peter wasn’t particularly expecting James there at all, and James would bet that the version that James has built from the ground is even more surprising. The version that Tony has helped him build. 

“I heard there was food?” Harley asks as James is taking the pizza out of the oven, hopping onto a counter. He and Tony do that often enough that James just sets hot things on the stove now instead of expecting any of the ample counter space to be even remotely free. Peter climbs onto one of the other counters a bit more shyly, looking between James and Harley for some sort of guidance. Harley nods at him, showing off a smile, and Peter sits on the surface more confidently. Tony was apparently beat out on the race to the sink this time, because he shows up a minute late and with what looks like motor oil still staining his forehead. James gets a rag, wetting it in the sink before wiping off the mess. 

“See what I mean?” Harley stage whispers to Peter, but it’s much too loud for even Tony to be able to ignore it, let alone James with the hearing of a super soldier. James rolls his eyes and ignores the boys, grabbing the pizza cutter of a drawer beside Harley and swatting him with it before using it to cut the pizza. 

“Don’t be a shit,” he says quietly, admonishing but still indulgent, and Harley just gives him an even shittier grin than before. Peter is observing nervously, looking as if he wants to enjoy their fun, but is also worrying about some sort of Winter Soldier freakout on the boy he obviously has a crush on. It’s all in his eyes, even more obvious that Harley’s feelings, and James is happy that Peter returns the feelings. Harley deserves some happiness in his life, even if that happiness comes in the form of a hero. 

“You’re not my real dad,” Harley says beneath his breath, but James is used to that. Peter gives an ugly snort, which he immediately covers his face for. 

“Don’t get all finicky about offending James - he’s not gonna fly off the handle. Our Snowflake is the most even tempered person in this joint,” Tony praises, putting a hand on James’s shoulder. James flushes at the praise and ducks out from under Tony’s hand, turning to cut the pizza and hide his face from everyone in the room. He hears Harley make a sound of frustration, but it’s far away almost, something that James isn’t meant to deal with. He cuts the pizza into strips rather than slices because Tony is always so particular about getting things that aren’t random inventing substances on his hands, and he cuts the crest away from half of it because Harley isn’t big on what he calls  _ pizza bones.  _

“Any pizza preferences, Peter?” he asks as he continues to cut the crusts away, not looking up at the rest of the room. Peter clears his throat. 

“I - uh - I have a weird thing about crust?” he answers as if he’s unsure, as if James will throw him out even as James was the one who asked. 

“So does Harley, you can just take some strips from his side. Sound good?” James asks, but Peter makes a noise of protest. 

“No, I mean - I really like crusts. Which also means I can take from Harley’s side. Yeah. Okay, ignore me,” Peter says, and James can hear the way he wrings his hands. He’s so like Tony as well, so nervous and yet so excitable, still just a kid. He wonders how Tony somehow generated two kids that are exactly like him but in such different ways, in such complimenting ways. 

“Alright, food is served. Come get it,” James announces as he makes the last cut, grabbing a plate from the cabinet but already getting out of the way. The boys will all grab what they want and James will take the rest. It’s a system that works, and keeps everyone healthily fed. 

Peter sits on the same side of the table as Harley when he sits down, easily assuming the position of Harley’s right hand. James gets a flash of the four of them playing board games, some old ones that Bucky remembered, and he smiles at the very idea. It’s probably a  _ bad  _ idea, but a fun one nonetheless. Tony and Harley are hard at work in convincing him that bad ideas are still oftentimes fun, which is a concept that James only believes in part of the time. He hasn’t decided yet if Peter will be more convincing of the logical or the illogical, but the kid seems too anxious to do as many dumb things as the other two. Tony taps his shoulder and it snaps James out of his thoughts. 

“What’s on your mind, soldier?” Tony asks, a soft smile taking over his expression. James considers not telling him, keeping it to himself, but sometimes the bad ideas are just more fun. 

“Board games. Old ones and new ones. Here at the table, maybe after dinner sometime?” James asks, his words awkward and stilted, but still enough to make Tony smile even wider. The buzz of conversation from the other side of the table stops and James looks over at Harley and then Peter, just checking on them. Tony is still looking at James, but James doesn’t think about it. 

“I’m not even going to get into what a moment  _ that  _ just was,” Harley starts, and Tony winces, though James doesn’t really understand why, “but I’m down for board games. I’ll wipe the floor with all you fucks.” James is glad to see that having Peter around doesn’t diminish Harley’s violent competitive streak. It’s very funny to see Harley clashing with Tony, both of them just as competitive as the other. Peter’s eyebrows are raised, but instead of the indulgent amusement that James expects, it’s a look of absolute challenge. 

“Wanna bet?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment, let me know what you think!


	8. eternity

Board games were a bad idea. 

“Fuck you! Shame on you, shame on your family, and shame on your fucking hotels!” Tony yells, flipping Harley off with both hands. Maybe board games had been an okay idea, but Monopoly is definitely going to hell in a handbasket. So maybe Monopoly might have been a better idea if James hadn’t called an alliance with Harley. 

“Pay up, old man,” Harley says giddily, accepting the fake money from Tony and sliding a quarter of it in James’s direction. James had bought Park Place before Harley could get there, and traded it for a quarter of the rent on both Park Place and the Boardwalk as well as Harley’s ownership of two of the railroads. Peter and Tony had also struck an alliance, but it was too late; James and Harley are way past dominating the game. It’s no longer a question of if Harley will win, only a question of when it will happen, and how close James will be in his second place spot. 

Harley makes a show of counting his money and Peter swats at him, indulgent but also ready to tease, and it occurs to James that Harley was right. He really did wipe the floor with all of them tonight. That means that Peter will want to play some other game, want to find something that Harley isn’t good at, want to frustrate Harley as Peter has been frustrated. James smiles in the face of such an idea, knowing that the kids will drag them into whatever game the two of them find to play, and he and Tony will indulge them and pretend to be  _ just  _ indulging them, not enjoying themselves at all. He’s brought back into the presence by a whine from Tony. 

“This is horrific. I am a businessman. I hate this,” Tony complains quietly, and James nudges his shoulder in sympathy. Tony bumps him back petulantly and James catches Tony’s right hand in his left, glad of the new prosthetic’s ability to feel touch, to feel anything but pain. He watches as Tony blushes, but neither of them drop the other’s hand, and Harley does not grown his exasperation. This is perhaps because he has been edging closer to Peter the entire evening, but James won’t be making fun of Harley either. The kid  _ deserves  _ this. And, frankly, so does Peter. Peter is so responsible, so old around his eyes, that he deserves all of the affection and irresponsible, teenage love he can get. 

“For the record, Mr. Stark, I’m a mathlete and I also hate this,” Peter says, but instead of coming out as a complaint, it sounds unduly fond. He is leaning right against Harley’s arm, looking small against the bulk that Harley has gained from a long time of working on cars, but also looking extremely pleased. Harley gives him a fond look of his own, blushing up to his sandy blonde curls, and James raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Shut up,” Harley commands simply, running his tongue over his teeth. James grins at him. It’s so fun and so easy to tease Harley sometimes. 

“Didn’t say anything, Harley,” James replies, his soft grin turning into shark’s teeth as he makes fun of the kid. Harley sticks out his tongue and James does the same in return, even if it is the first time he’s ever done so in his memory. Tony laughs, and it sounds like rugged, deep bell tolls, so high and clear and yet so rich. 

“We broke him!” Tony cheers, high fiving Harley across the table. James wrinkles his brow, not sure of how concerned to be. He does not like the use of the word  _ break  _ in concern to himself, but he can wait for how Tony means it. Words that sound bad at first usually mean something very different when coming out of the mouth of Tony Stark, even when James deserves worse things. James usually deserves worse things than whatever Tony Stark is willing to give, if that isn’t proven by James being here at all. He doesn’t realise how much of a kicked puppy he looks like until Tony is unlacing their fingers, stretching upward so that he can throw an arm around James’s shoulders, bringing him in for comfort. 

“He just means that we got you to act like a kid, Jimbo. Not anything with dirty HYDRA hands all over it,” Harley assuages in a reassuringly calm voice. Harley has a way about calming things down by not taking anything even remotely seriously, and James can appreciate that. James takes everything seriously, categorizes the threats and throws unimportant things away, but Harley never does anything like that. He remembers everything, keeps everything together so that he can make the connections no one else would make, and everything is still a joke. It’s amazing. Tony is much the same way, and though Peter worries more, he isn’t far behind. 

“Alright, my turn to play and owe someone money. If I say pretty please, can I not pay rent if I land on Park Place or the Boardwalk?” Peter says, turning big brown eyes on Harley. Peter has very little property on the board, being the last to have gone, and he’s nearly out of money besides. Despite his faux innocent act, Peter Parker is more than willing to wrap Harley John Keener around his little finger, and it’s so hilarious to witness it’s a wonder that James doesn’t snort right now. He doesn’t make fun of the boy though, because Tony’s arm is still around his shoulders and James still isn’t complaining. Harley folds under the pressure immediately. 

“Give your quarter to the old man and you can get outta my part,” Harley allows, blushing dark and looking down at his property cards. He pretends to be straightening them out instead of watching Peter roll, grinning as the boy lands on Park Place, two spots before Tony’s, which still rests on the Boardwalk. Peter slides the appropriate amount of Monopoly money over to James and leans against Harley’s shoulder sweetly, pressing his face against the other boy’s jacket for a brief moment. Harley is still red when Tony clears his throat. 

“This is awful. I’m cancelling the game, I’m bored. Jamie, make me somethin’ sweet,” Tony requests, slipping his arm off of James’s shoulder and slipping their hands back together. James rolls his eyes and gives him a fond look before standing, crossing from the dining room into the kitchen. Harley makes a noise of protest, but Peter drags him to follow, hopping onto one of the counters. Harley follows him up with a still-red face, and at this point, James kinda thinks he’ll just be that color forever. Peter Parker will be the death of Harley much the same as Tony Stark being the death of James. 

“Chocolate or fruit or peanut butter or some combination thereof?” James asks as he looks into the fridge, raising his eyebrow at the contents. Depending on the decision by the peanut gallery, he has a few things he could go with, none of which should take long enough for the boys and Tony to get bored and head back to the lab. Tony and Harley are hyperactive enough that it takes a little less than ten minutes for that, though Peter’s presence usually extends that to about fifteen minutes. That kid is a lifesaver. 

“Chocolate,” Tony says when the children don’t answer, not looking at James but rather at Peter. That kid, speaking of which, is climbing onto the high vaulted ceilings to entertain Harley, which James just shrugs to when he notices. He pulls out a ready to eat pie crust from the cabinet, one of the graham cracker ones that he had picked up just for fun, and sets it on the counter. He grabs a packet of chocolate pudding mix and a bowl along with the appropriate amount of milk and sets that on the counter as well. Next is the mixer, the cocoa, the powdered sugar and the heavy whipping cream. 

“It’ll take about ten minutes for me to make the pudding and let it set, so you guys go get your phones and tablets and such,” James suggests, already setting about his task. The others scatter like mice, running off to respective rooms and maybe even to the lab, he doesn’t really know where everyone else’s shit is. He and Tony had gotten the kids to agree to a no-tech challenge in which no one could complain. Tony had broken first, complaining about his inability to google the rules after water had been spilled on the paper copies, so the kids get to collectively decide on a punishment. James is staying out of it, knowing that Harley and Peter will be menaces enough. 

The first to get back to the kitchen is Harley, who is doing the hung together shoulders thing that means he wants to talk. 

“Talk. I’ll warn you if I hear someone coming,” he assures, and Harley trusts him, because that’s what Harley does. He trusts James and he’s so young, and so good, and such a good fucking kid. 

“It’s hard, you know? Liking someone like him when he’s so… good. He’s so good and I don’t know how to be good enough for him. I don’t even know where to begin to start, to be honest,” Harley says, a soft, honest complaint that makes James’s chest ache. He wants to reach out for the kid, to comfort and offer something that James isn’t sure he still has inside of himself, but he doesn’t know if the touch would be welcome; he tries not to assume those things. He looks up when Harley is silent for a stretched out moment, scowling and looking frustrated at himself. 

“What’s up, Harls?” he asks softly, raising his eyebrows and putting down his whisk. Harley runs his tongue along his teeth, his tell for frustration. The kid has so many tells, so many little things that make it so easy to see what he’s thinking, and James would kill anyone for taking advantage of that. Harley is one of James’s people of the future, one of the few he would do anything for, and no one is allowed to make him feel lesser for showing the way he feels on his face. It’s never a bad thing. Harley is still frowning. 

“Tony says I’m not supposed to ask, but. Can I hug you? I really need a hug,” Harley admits, his teeth set in bottom lip hard enough he looks as if he’s going to chew through, and James just opens his arms. The kid crashes against him like a tide and James holds him close, nearly picking him up with how hard he holds onto him. Except, on the opposite, he holds Harley so delicately that he couldn’t dream of hurting the kid, strength dialed back so hard it almost feels as if Harley is made of warm, spun glass. Harley clings onto him and James lets him, wants him to, because this kid deserves so much more than a father who left him, than the teachers who can’t recognise him for what he is, than the life he has had to lead. 

James is still holding onto Harley, tucking the kid’s head against his chest, when Tony and Peter come back. He’s not sure if he wants to let go, but he knows that this isn’t something that the kid wants everybody and their mama to see. If he did, he would have asked for the hug with everyone in the room, after all. 

“Do we need to come back?” Tony mouths, and James shakes his head. Peter is just standing there, awkward, until Harley pulls back. If Harley’s eyes are wet and a little red, the hard glare that James sends out seems to set everyone off mentioning it. 

“Alright! Pie! Let’s make a pie! Let me help!” Tony insists, and James has to bodily push the Stark out of the way to get back where he was. Tony has a tendency to go a little too wild with a whisk, completing going off of any recipe and taking it as an initiative to do whatever looks fun. James does not allow that in his kitchen. 

“You okay?” James hears Peter ask Harley, near whispered as the kid takes a seat next to him. Harley nods but admits to the want for affection that’s deep within him, leaning his head against Peter’s shoulder. 

“Okay,” James says, “How about I teach you guys how to make whipped cream?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	9. constellation

“Come on, Snowflake, we’re going out,” Tony announces as James comes into the lab, and James just pauses in the entryway. The boys are nowhere to be found, which is automatically suspicious, but not even nearly as suspicious as Tony even suggesting to take James out of the house. James hasn’t really been a  _ public  _ guy since he came in from the cold, and Tony has been really good about it. Instead of freaking out, however, James just gives Tony a look that he knows communicates an air of  _ What the whole fuck, Tony?  _ The genius shrugs, giving him a grin. 

“Friday, do I have any plans for today?” James asks the AI, looking up at the ceiling despite multiple indications by Tony that he does not have to look at the ceiling to be respectful toward Friday. 

“Looks like a no, James. You have cooking plans, but you usually tell me to just push those back, so that’s what the Boss has already asked me to do,” Friday reports, and James raises an eyebrow. Tony doesn’t even bother to look sheepish, just giving another shrug and sustaining a signature girn, and James rolls his eyes. 

“Where are the boys?” he asks, looking out onto the empty lab. Tony’s smile gets even shittier now, looking like the cat who caught the canary.

“Our beloved boys are on a  _ It’s not a date, Tony!  _ to show Peter some of the tourist spots that Harley has grown accustomed to in his visits. Harley was very clear on it not being a date,” Tony explains, giving a little shoulder shimmy during his very bad impression of Harley. James breaks into a grin despite himself and steps forward knocking his shoulder against Tony’s, who looks a bit starstruck by the fondness. Tony shakes himself of it and looks down, a light shade of pink that James adores. 

“So, where are we goin’?” James asks, letting a little bit of Bucky’s Brooklyn flow through his voice. It always brings a reaction in Tony, and even though James doesn’t really understand what the reaction means, James still likes it. Tony stares at him for a second too long before clearing his throat and conjuring back his smile. 

“We, my dearest, are going  _ Christmas shopping!  _ Well, it’s Hanukkah shopping for Peter, and Christmas-and-Yule shopping for Harley, but holiday shopping! I love buying gifts. Really, all we need to get is stocking stuffers, because they both still deserve stockings, shut up, but I already have most of their big gifts! We can pick out stuff for you to get them too, and we can pick up stuff for whatever you want to cook for the actual day we celebrate!” Tony rattles off excitedly, and James loves to hear him talk. He doesn’t really understand the concept of gifts, only has vague memories of Bucky’s love of Hanukkah and the Rogers family Christmas, but he’ll go with Tony on this journey. 

“Is sending food home with someone a valuable gift?” James asks, tilting his head, and Tony laughs. He nods and he pushes James out of the lab, pushing him out of the door and into one of the cars. 

They shop. It’s a bit of a disaster, he and Tony running all over town and avoiding wherever Harley might be showing Peter something, and James curses Tony (in a joking manner) for not getting an itinerary from the boys. Tony complains that Harley might have given a thing like that to  _ James,  _ but if Tony even dared to ask, there would be some sort of sarcastic response and a complete lack of sticking to the itinerary if one was provided at all. James laughs and agrees, and they continue to shop, sneaking around like high schoolers on their way to a senior’s party. They get home before the boys do and hide everything in James’s room knowing that neither of the boys would ever come in there without permission. 

Days pass so quickly, now. When James was with Rogers, moments seemed to take hours, but every single day seems like a moment passes and suddenly he’s patting Harley on the back before the kid goes to bed. James does a perimeter check every night because it makes him feel safer, but it’s also for Harley, Peter and Tony - all three of them had confided in James at some point that it makes them feel safer too. It just makes James more vigorous in his security checks. 

James has to wrap the presents for the boys. Tony is much too excited to do it well, and as steady as his hands are with a blowtorch or a screwdriver or whatall, his hands shake trying to cut wrapping paper. James does it delicately, layers where there needs to be layers, and does it in the dead of night. He feels a bit like a distant memory of Bucky’s parents, wrapping gifts they could barely afford when Bucky woke up in the middle of the night, discovering them making Hanukkah a reality. Bucky had gone back to bed without a glass of water and with a smile that night, and James wants to make his boys that happy. He wraps Tony’s gift right along with theirs, tucking everything together. 

The morning comes all too soon and James has only slept two hours, but there are no regrets. He sets out wrapped presents in the lab, setting up stacks at the places in which Tony, Harley and Peter usually set up their individual camps. With that done, James goes to make breakfast. Vegetarian breakfast sausage, bagels with lox, and chocolate brioche french toast all seem good, so he sets about making them. He’s just started frying the second to last piece of french toast when Tony comes into the kitchen, stumbling over to James and wrapping himself around James’s back. James just lets him instead of reacting, continuing to fry the last two pieces and setting them on the pile. He detaches Tony from himself and deposits the man near the coffeemaker. 

“I’m gonna go get the boys up. Get some coffee in you, Tones,” James suggests before he leaves the kitchen, unable to suppress the fondness in his chest as he thinks about sleepy Tony. He knocks on the walls on either side of the hallway that Harley and Pete stay in, tapping on doors a couple of times. He knows from experience that both of them wake up pretty easily to that kind of thing, and they’ll be up once they realise that the smell is food. Teenage boys are easy. 

“What? Where’s the fire?” Harley asks as he stumbles out of his room half dressed, boxers and a t-shirt the only things to cover his modesty. James couldn’t really care less, so he shrugs and waves for the boy to follow him. He stops at Peter’s door rather than leading Harley directly to the kitchen, and the kid bumps into his back. James turns and gives Harley a one armed hug, which the kid immediately sinks into. Morning Harley always wants even more hugs than awake Harley, which James doesn’t mind to indulge. 

“Breakfast and gifts. Get Peter,” James instructs, to which Harley actually listens. Harley is a good kid like that. He may not listen to Tony, but  _ Tony  _ doesn’t listen to Tony, so it’s not actually that big of a deal. Friday doesn’t even listen to Tony, and that’s saying something; she listens to James as well. The only person who really takes any kind of favor to listening to Tony at all is Peter, and the kid is so full of hero worship that he went into battle for Tony. James can’t blame the kid. He kinda is too. James walks into the kitchen and has to pour Tony his cup of coffee, because the man has just been leaning against the counter with his face pressed against a cabinet, half napping. James smiles fondly. 

Harley and Peter are leaning on each other as they stumble into the kitchen, both looking sleepy. It’s already nine in the morning, so James isn’t sure why they’re all so fussy about being woken up. He’s already been up for almost two hours, making breakfast and setting out gifts and being generally more fussy than he would like to admit to. He likes to take care of his boys, and he indulges those impulses. If these are the ones he gives into, it’s not like he’s doing anything less savory. 

“Harley, grab your juice and utensils for everyone. Peter, grab your energy drink and plates for everyone. Tony, get your ass in a seat, you’re gonna fall over,” James instructs everyone, to which the entire room takes heed. James nods at the confirmation and asks Friday to play quiet music, something with piano, which she takes as an initiative to play his classical playlist on Spotify, which satisfies James. He brings the plates of food and sets them down on the table before sitting down himself. 

“Happy holidays, guys,” Tony says as everyone settles, his voice rough for being the first use of it of the day, and James smiles. 

“Happy holidays,” he replies, looking down at his food. For doing so much, the absolute fucking most, he suddenly feels very nervous, a bit like he’s about to be made fun of. Instead, Tony scoots just the littlest bit closer to him and leans against his shoulder. Harley, across from James, kicks him softly beneath the table, just enough to make physical contact. That’s been something Harley’s taken on, for some reason or another - physically assuring James, that is. Ever since the hug in the kitchen, the kid has been all for making sure that James gets all of the affection he’d been missing as a war criminal. 

Harley finishes exactly two pieces of french toast before he’s bouncing in his seat. This right here is why Tony is drinking coffee and Peter is drinking Monster energy drink and Harley is drinking  _ juice.  _ The kid is a shit show all by his lonesome, and James grins at him across the table. 

“So, where are the presents? Y’all need to hurry up. I’m gay and stronger than any of you so don’t try any shit,” Harley says. Peter snorts out Monster through his nose, which makes Tony snort coffee, and James nearly has to stand up he’s laughing so hard. Harley gets the kind of proud look that means he’s not exactly sure how he pulled that off, but he’s laughing at himself too. Part of James wonders just how often this kid feels like people don’t or shouldn’t like him, but he can’t think about that for very long. Whenever James thinks about whoever made Harley less confident in himself, he wants to grab a weapon of some sort and leave for a few days. Bring Harley back someone’s head. 

“Wait a second, kiddo, let the rest of us catch up. Some of us aren’t even awake yet,” James replies, gesturing at Tony with a tilt of his head. Though Tony is a lot more awake after the trauma of breathing coffee, he’s still about to fall asleep in his plate. Which James would totally just make fun of him for, and not clean up after him and maybe carry him to his bathroom so he could shower. Yeah. 

“I can take my coffee with me, and we can come back to breakfast if we want. You ready, Pete?” Tony asks, jutting his chin up at Peter. Peter guns the rest of his drink and nods, easily throwing the now crushed can into the recycling bin across the room. Tony stands and Peter follows, leaving James and Harley to look at each other and shrug, standing as well. James leads the way to the lab and sits down on the weight bench, taking his usual distance from where the inventors usually are. He is torn between wanting to watch them open their gifts and wanting to stay far, far away and never see their reactions. 

“Jimbo,” Harley says, and it is much more reverent than the gift deserves. It’s a book of recipes written in James’s own hand, edited in which way that James would edit it if he were cooking for Harley. There’s sections on anything Harley could want, divided into the things that Harley likes that are healthy and that James approve of versus the things that Harley and Tony both love to con him into making. There’s a section in the back that is recipes for Peter, but he knows that Harley isn’t going to mention that. Harley isn’t one to bring the evidence of his own crush into the light. 

“James,” Peter says as he discovers his, running reverent hands over the textures. Even though Peter does not like violence, James obtained him a set a black, blue and red spider themed knives, all ceramic to get through metal detectors. Peter doesn’t know, but Tony gave them a set of trackers as well, just in case Peter has his knives and not his suit. Tony opens his gift from James last, and James does not look at him. 

“Snowflake,” Tony calls him, soft and sweet, and James looks. Tony is holding a tin of cookies that James found a recipe for on Tony’s mother’s wikipedia, something that had been passed down from doting Italian mother to doting Italian mother, and these are what James can give Tony of what he took away. This is what he can do. 

When Tony looks at him like that, it almost feels like enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme know what you think!!


	10. midnight

There’s a small cat under James’s feet, and it’s the first time he’s smiled today when he looks down at her. She’s made of metal, not even a faux fur hair on her, and she purrs in a way that just sounds like the metallic whirr of machines. 

Peter and Harley made her for James for Christmas. 

It’s quiet with the two of them gone; Harley is off to Tennessee to celebrate Christmas and a late Yule with his mother, while Peter is celebrating a late Hanukkah in New York. Harley had flown home in his new suit (one of his many presents from Tony), one meant for senior prom, though he swears he isn’t going. He won’t admit that it’s because there’s only one person he wants to go with. Peter had tucked away his own prom suit with a promise that he’ll send Tony and James pictures of it when MJ and Ned make him take all the pictures in the world, and Tony had grinned like Peter had promised him the world. The other presents for the boys had been quite personally tailored by Tony. 

Harley is now the proud owner of these things: three beat to shit classic cars, along with the materials to fix them, and twenty pounds of Wakandan fresh Vibranium. James doesn’t really know where it came from, but he knows that Harley is excited for the chance to work with it. Along with that, Harley has a bunch of wiring shit that James doesn’t really even begin to understand, but Tony tells him is all of the ingredients for a little Friday, like the larval form of an AI. James thinks that Harley will make a wonderful creator for an AI. He has all of the sweetness and all of the wits that make Tony good for this kind of thing, even if the Stark doesn’t trust himself for it anymore. 

Peter was given this: another upgrade to the Spider-Man suit, to which he reacted poorly at first, as he had been sure Harley, at the very least, had no idea. Because of the precious nature of both the suit and the next item, Peter only received three items - the formalwear, the spider suit, and genetic material swabs and collections from five Asgardians. Apparently, some members of Thor’s realm had owed Tony some favors, and this is how the genius cashed them in. James doesn’t know how to deal with how selfless Tony is, how much he cares about their kids. Their kids. He hates how much he loves the sound of that, like this is where he and Tony raise their children, like this where Harley and Peter come to rest their bones. 

James misses them, but he has Littlefoot as a companion. Harley and Peter had named her, but James doesn’t want to change a single thing about the kitten at his feet. It’s so quiet. Harley so often is cussing up a storm, Peter running after him in some attempt to keep the chaos to a radius, and now… it’s silent. Harley is in Tennessee. Peter is in New York. 

“Hey Snowflake. Wanna come watch a movie with me?” Tony asks quietly as he comes into the kitchen. It’s like he too cannot bare the silence that Harley and Peter are there to fill, and James wants to break down. Instead, he just nods. He picks up his hot chocolate and the coffee he was making for Tony anyway, and they head to the living room. Where they used to have the excuse of Harley and Peter bookending them into sitting so close they could hardly breathe on the couch, now they just sit close of their own accord. Littlefoot jumps onto the couch and lays with them, still making her little whirring purrs. 

“Jar - Friday. You’re Friday. Sorry, baby girl,” Tony interrupts himself to apologize, and James runs a hand through the other man’s hair soothingly. James does not know the story behind Jarvis, Friday’s predecessor, but he knows the sadness that the AI brings in around Tony’s eyes. “Can you put on  _ How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days?”  _ the genius requests, looking tired. 

“What’s that?” James asks, though not challengingly. He genuinely just wants some clarification. Tony gives him a sardonic smile, one that makes James want to genuinely make him smile. 

“It’s a rom-com. Romantic comedy. It’s just somethin’ I watch when I’m sad. If you don’t like it, we can change it,” Tony offers before the movie even starts, and James makes a decision right there. Even if the movie is awful, to the point of triggering (though he doesn’t know how a romantic comedy, based on the words, would get to be that way), he will finish this movie. Tony Stark deserves whatever security blanket movie he wants to have. James lays back on the couch away from Tony, but immediately wants to feel his warmth, wants to feel him there. He sits up just long enough to pull Tony with him, and Littlefoot climbs through the calamity of limbs to sit near their feet. 

“Hi there,” James greets when Tony’s face is near his, much closer than he originally anticipated by the move. Tony drops his nervous expression for a grin and dips down to nuzzle his face at James’s throat. The part of James that oftentimes feels more like beast than man preens at the closeness, so different from the machine parts of him that the soldier claimed so long ago. Tony has changed James from a frightened cyborg into a clingy beast of a man, and James cannot find it in himself to be angry about the change. Instead, he wraps his arms around Tony’s middle as the beginning sequence of the movie starts, and he watches to find out exactly what Tony loves so much about this rom-com. 

“Jamie, get your cat,” Tony whines, and that’s when James notices that he fell asleep at all. He didn’t know he was able to fall asleep with this much proximity to another person, breathing the same air and owning the same space. Tony is still comfortably stretched across James’s person, though he’s curling up his legs so that his knees are more in the range of his torso. Littlefoot is using her blunted metal teeth to nip at Tony’s toes - she does it to James every night when she senses him having nightmares. It’s a protocol that Harley had originated, that Peter had perfected. 

“Havin’ a nightmare, Tones?” James asks, his voice rough with sleep and splitting through with the streets of Brooklyn. Tony looks down at him, suddenly completely awake and looking much like a deer caught in the headlights. James goes immediately from sleepy and teasing to awake and comforting, slipping his arms around Tony’s middle more comfortably. Tony looks like he’s ready to squirm. 

“What are you -” Tony starts, but James interrupts him. 

“It’s called comforting you, Tony. More people should try it,” James remarks bitterly, remembering the bitter talk of Tony amongst the rogues before James had ‘gone under’ as it were. The media talks about Tony Stark like he’s a devil with the horns included, evil and obvious in his intentions. The Rogues spoke of Tony Stark as if he was a snake, slithering through the courts and tricking everyone with his money and his flashy smiles. Instead, James sees just a man, a beautiful, wonderful man. A man who deserves much more kindness in this world than he has ever received, and James wants to be part of fixing that. He wants to be Tony’s friend. He wants to be someone Tony can depend on. 

“I want to try… therapy. Seeing someone. About. My brain stuff. My stuff,” James says haltingly. “I think we should both try it,” he suggests slowly, watching the expressions flit over Tony’s face. He sees the moment where he thinks Tony is going to get angry, going to deny everything and they’ll have a big fight about it. Instead, Tony mophs to understanding, his shoulders slumping. Then, it’s a mission, James can see it in his eyes, it’s a mission that Tony aims to complete, and Tony only ever completes things the right way. 

“I’m gonna find us the best therapist in the state. I can find us one that does… POWs. Trauma. War. We can find someone who can help us. We’ll get better, Jamie. I can see it,” Tony says, sitting up a little in a way that puts pressure on James’s lower stomach, but he can’t seem to force himself to care. He smiles up at Tony and pulls him into another hug, rubbing the other man’s back. Tony relaxes back into it and sinks his fingers into James’s hair, stretching out like a cat. Speaking of the cat, Littlefoot hops off of the end of the couch and runs off in the direction of Harley’s room, assumably to assume her spot at the charging station Harley left for her in his room. 

She doesn’t really need to charge, but both of the boys figured that a charging cat would be more accurate. 

When they get up a couple of hours later, Kate Hudson rom-coms playing in the background to keep the silence at bay, Tony looks newly invigorated. He almost looks happy enough to kiss Bucky, but that’s probably just wishful thinking. 

“I’m gonna find us a bitchin therapist. You’re not even gonna know what hitcha, Jamie,” Tony says excitedly, rushing off to assumably go to his lab or his office or somewhere in which he and Friday can devise some ingenious plan to take care of James much more than he deserves. He only wants to go to therapy to that he can be good enough to take care of Tony, and so Tony will go as well. James stands and pads back into the kitchen; neither he nor Tony have eaten in several hours, if Tony’s eaten all day. He was awake before James was, which is concerning enough, but he was already on the phone with someone at the time. James looks in the fridge before grabbing his tablet from the counter. 

“What’s on the agenda, Friday?” he asks, tilting his head up at the ceiling. Friday pulls up one of his own hastily written recipe ideas, and he smiles. It’s something quick that he had conceptualized while Harley had still been home, and it makes him ache, but it makes him want to make it too. If he tries it out now, it’ll be perfect by the next time Harley comes to visit them  _ (by the next time Harley comes home, _ a voice in James’s head says, but it’s the same voice that calls Harley _ kiddo _ and ruffles his hair, so he pushes that down). 

It’s an easy recipe, and James knows they have all of the ingredients. He puts a pot of water on to boil first, moving to the pantry to grab an onion and putting it in a small dice. Cooking calms him after the worry of Tony’s nightmare, one that he knows the other man won’t talk about, so he’s happy for the distraction. He pours the onion into a flat nonstick wok along with some butter, turning the heat to medium. He pours a can of mushrooms in on top of it and salts it, cracking some black pepper into the pot as well. He’s gotten to enjoy fresh cracked black pepper in his time since getting used to a second hand. 

He throws a bag of boil-in-bag brown rice into the pot of water when it comes to a boil, turning to the fridge to pull out some soy chicken chunks. He pulls out the honey mustard while he’s there, setting it on the counter beside the stove. Tony doesn’t mind honey mustard, which he’s only discovered by stealing it off of James’s plate; Harley had discovered his amiability to it in much the same fashion. James smiles at the memory and keeps the happiness he finds there rather than letting missing the boys get in the way of loving them. 

When it’s time, he takes the bag of rice out of the pot. It’s hot enough that he has to take it out with tongs rather than his metal hand; he’s still getting used to the idea of being able to feel temperature well enough for it to hurt him. The chickenless chicken is good and cooked by now, so James snips a corner from the bag of rice with a pair of kitchen shears and dumps it into the wok as well, loving the sizzle it makes. He pours in about half a cup of honey mustard in with it, as well as some Chicago steak seasoning. When he tastes it, it’s exactly as he expected: a nice amount of salty, tangy and sweet. He thinks Tony will like it. He makes a quiet request for Friday to grab Tony for him, and the man skids into the kitchen less than a minute later, looking as if he’s being chased. 

“She said you needed me in the kitchen!” Tony says in his own defense as he surveys the room. James bursts into laughter. Tony startles in the way that means he thinks he’s not worthy of experiencing whatever he’s seeing; it’s the look he gets when Harley invents some new way to do things, the look he gets when Peter goes on about justice and good and the way that  _ intelligence  _ and things like that can make it better. James does not feel worthy of that look, but he keeps his smile. He will not let the things that he wants that Tony doesn’t get in the way of loving this man either. 

“It’s just time to eat,” James replies, and there’s no way he’s kept the fondness off of his face. He can’t move himself to care. 


	11. morning

Tony does find them a therapist. She’s a Marine veteran with a facial scar that makes James thinks she understands, and she speaks slowly, calmly, carefully. James likes her. He goes to therapy once a week, every Tuesday, a halfway negotiation with the promise that he’ll go more if he feels the need. Tony goes on Thursdays, not dressed in his usual jeans and a band t-shirt or his nearly equally usual suit, but oftentimes in jeans and a sweater that looks so soft that James can hardly hold himself from touching it. James goes to therapy in the morning and Theresa greets him with a cup of coffee and a smile, never speaking until he does. James finds it comforting. 

“Mornin’ doc,” he greets, giving her a nod of recognition as he sits down. Her nails are painted burgundy today, a deep tone that almost reminds James of the armor, but what doesn’t remind him of some aspect of Tony these days?  He settles into his seat at a slouch; Theresa prefers when he gets comfortable, says something about  _ open minds  _ and some shit, so James just slouches and thinks about Tony and that’s what comfort looks like. This is only his third session, so it’s not like he’s experienced in this. 

“So, how has this week looked, James?” Theresa asks. James thinks about it, and it hasn’t been all bad. 

“Littlefoot has had to wake me up every day this week, but she’s woken me up before the nightmares get bad,” James ticks off, though he’s only getting started, “I’ve made new recipes at least once a day every day, I’ve watched movies with Tony, I’ve been in the gym some but not too much - only like an hour or so a day, and Tony is teaching me some rudimentary wiring stuff for Littlefoot’s maintenance.” He hadn’t known that using the gym four hours a day wasn’t healthy, but Theresa gave him some information about hyperfixations and post-battle situation ADHD, and now he thinks differently. 

“How do you like the learning?” Theresa asks, and it’s a lead on, but James will let her do lead ons. They help. 

“It’s nice, to do something that’s so obvious right here, right now. Even if I was Bucky in Brooklyn in 2010 or whatever, I still likely wouldn’t be learning wiring from Tony Stark in his lab with Dum-e and U and Butterfingers poking at us. It’s just something that keeps me firmly as  _ James,  _ 2019,” he explains, fidgeting only a little. Theresa nods. 

“That’s a good way of looking at things. Are you getting overwhelmed by the technology at all?” she asks, and James shakes his head. 

“I know that Rogers is the only other person who’s been research material for being even remotely like me, but we’re nothing alike. I was there when a lot of technology came about. It’s not something I mind,” James explains, and Theresa is raising her eyebrows and oh god. Oh no, she found something to latch onto. 

“I didn’t mention Rogers. Is there something you would like to talk about concerning the Captain?” James rolls his eyes. He’s getting better at letting himself more openly express, which is something Theresa actually wants, so it’s fine. 

“Everyone wants to mention Rogers. He and Bucky were a package deal. But, the problem is… I’m not Bucky anymore. Bucky’s dead. I think the Bucky he knew was long dead before he fell off of the train, maybe even dead when Rogers saved him from capture the first time. But he’s never gonna get that. He’s not gonna get that I’m  _ James  _ and I built me from the ground up with Tony and Friday and Harley and Peter, and James is different and I’m  _ proud  _ of James. I’m… I’m proud of myself,” James finishes, suddenly unsure of himself. It’s not a thought he’s ever had before, but he realises it’s true. It’s not even remotely a lie and he feels it in his bones, and Theresa is smiling. 

“You should be. Being proud of yourself for what you have done, right here and right now, is okay. How are you dealing with the absence of Harley and Peter?” she asks, resituating herself and the clipboard she never writes on. She had told James that the clipboard was just for writing down things she remembered mid session that she would need later, not particularly for making patient notes. She doesn’t have enough patients to really lose the plot of any of them, which reassures James. He sighs at the mention of the boys, though. 

“I miss them. I miss Peter a lot, but it’s harder to miss Harley. He was around for longer, and he does this thing where he hugs me a lot, but he makes it like it’s for him. I dunno if it actually is for him, but it’s nice for me anyway. The house is quiet without them. I’ve been dealing with it though - we’ve been talking over the distance too. It’s just still hard,” he admits, clasping his hands together. He misses both of the boys tremendously, but it’s been getting easier, he thinks. He texts and calls both of them sometimes, and they’re always quick to answer. Harley will text him ideas at three in the morning and James will send him to bed - it’s great. 

“Have you had any memory return this week?” she asks. It changes the subject pretty hard, but James knows that that only means that he’s dealing with it well. She would talk about it more if he wasn’t. 

“Not really? I remember a lot of stuff about being Bucky, I think, it just… matters less? It was so long ago, and so many things have happened since, that being twenty four feels like a memory you have from being five. It’s not something you’re basing your decisions on  _ now,”  _ James attempts to explain. Theresa nods but James knows that it’s not something that’s easy to understand; it’s not something he expects  _ anyone  _ to understand. He barely understands himself most days. 

“Have you thought about explaining that to Rogers, should you ever meet again?” Theresa asks, and wow. James hasn’t thought about meeting Rogers again at all, and as that occurs to him, it feels almost freeing. He hasn’t had a single thought about Rogers barging in and ruining everything, and that’s amazing. 

“I haven’t thought about it at all. I don’t… I don’t have to explain myself to him. That’s not… it’s not my job. If Rogers… has ideas about who I should be, that’s… not my fault?” James phrases the last bit as a question and Theresa is smiling at him. She only  _ really  _ smiles when James is getting something, and she had only smiled once during their first session, only smiled once in the second, and now she’s smiling today. James feels a surge of pride and smiles back, feeling good. 

“That’s good. You’re becoming your own man. Have you picked up any of the hobbies we talked about?” Theresa asks, and James nods. They had talked about hobbies besides working out and cooking last week, and he’s actually excited about his progress on the one he picked up. 

“I’ve been loom knitting. Tony’s been ordering yarn basically every day, three times a day since I ordered the looms for same day delivery, and there’s a quick turn out, once I figured it out. I. I actually have something for you,” he says, remembering that he has a pair of blue-and-silver socks in his backpack. He also has a loom in there, more yarn, loom picks and a couple of yarn needles of different sizes, just in case. He pulls out the socks and passes them to her, trying to control the fact that giving someone something he created still makes him glow with pride. Tony has two beanies and two pairs of socks; the hats only take about two hours, both socks even less, and James has been knitting all the time. 

“They’re beautiful, James. Have you made anything for yourself?” she inquires, and James knows the purpose of the question. They’ve been talking (however briefly) about making things for his own enjoyment as well as the enjoyment of others, and this is right up that alley, even if they’d been talking about the recipes that James has been tailoring for the others at the time. 

“I’ve made myself socks, and I’m considering picking up knitting without a loom to make myself gloves,” he provides, though he does not mention that the knitting and the gloves would also be in Tony’s interest. He does not know how to explain how much of his interest is directly related to how much Tony will enjoy something, so he doesn’t even try. Theresa nods and then she asks him something else, moving on with their meeting until it’s time for James to go home, which is only down the road. Tony had bought a building nearby so that he and James could go to a place that wasn’t home to be in therapy without having to go far, and James is grateful for that. 

He doesn’t want to associate spilling his guts with the living room floor, after all. 

“I’ll see you next week, James. Keep up with your hobbies, and consider a journal, would you? It’s not homework, but it is an idea,” she suggests, holding open the door for James. She’ll leave almost directly after James will, but she always acts as if she’s going to be staying a while. James doesn’t know why, but it’s almost comforting. 

He takes his motorcycle to and from therapy, even if it’s in walking distance. He likes the humming noise that reminds him that he’s real. 

“Snowflake! How was therapy?” Tony asks as soon as James steps into the living room, which is odd. James hadn’t been expecting Tony in the living room as the man is usually in the lab at this hour, but Tony is likely waiting for James anyway. The first time, James had come back from therapy raw, even if he and Theresa had been rather soft in the interrogation aspects of therapy. James shrugs and crashes onto the couch next to Tony. Even if they’re soft in therapy, it’s still a lot. 

“It was okay,” he says, and Tony makes a sympathetic noise. It’s a moment before Tony arranges himself to lean back against the couch, pulling James back with him and running his fingers through James’s hair. James curls into the comfort and spreads himself over Tony like a blanket, pressing his face into the arc reactor. It’s bright, and it should hurt to press his face against metal, but it’s comforting in a way that James can’t even come close to explaining. It’s because it’s so obviously Tony, he thinks, but there’s more to it. It’s because it’s so obviously safe. 

“Wanna watch a movie, soldier? We can lay right here, stay here a while,” Tony coaxes quietly, and James nods. He’s holding onto the other man pretty tightly, though it’s never tight enough to hurt Tony; James would rather die. Holding Tony close is a gift, and James will cherish the moments he gets to have it for a long time. 

“No Kate Hudson,” James says into Tony’s chest, and he feels it shake with Tony’s laughter. He loves making Tony laugh. 

“No Kate Hudson,” Tony agrees, and then he’s speaking to the ceiling. “Can you turn on Maid in Manhattan, Fri? And then, just continue the J-Lo rom-com trend, please.” Friday makes an affirmative answer and turns on a movie that has a bouncy and bright beginning, though James can’t really see it. He can hear the music and a bit of the background noise, just enough to generate that most rom-coms have the same energy, whether Kate Hudson is there or not. If Tony likes them, it’s not like James is picky enough to tell him no. He’s going to fall asleep pressed firmly against Tony’s person, and he’s perfectly okay with that. He can’t imagine a better way to do it.

The intro to a movie called  _ The Backup Plan  _ is playing when James next comes back to awareness. Tony is asleep now, snoring with his nose tucked into James’s hair, but he doesn’t startle awake when James moves. James is hovering above his face, smiling softly and fondly, when Tony comes awake. Instead of looking shocked, which James half expected, Tony looks pleasantly surprised, like seeing James as soon as he wakes up is a gift. It’s a gift that James would like to give him every single day for the rest of their lives, and there is one easy way to make sure that that’s a possibility, to make sure that this is okay. That wanting this is okay. Their noses are touching when Friday interrupts. 

“Sorry, boss, but you’ve got a call. Readings say it’s from Wakanda. You might wanna take it.” 

_ Shit.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme know what you think!


	12. come home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going out tomorrow, so you guys are getting the update on Sunday instead of Monday!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

James feels sick. Princess Shuri arrives today, as does King T’Challa, as does Madame Okoye. Tony has been by James’s side all day, running a hand along his shoulders to keep him calm as James makes himself focus on not dropping stitches, on purling and knit stitching, on the fact that these gloves won’t fucking cooperate. Tony has his phone in the hand that’s not on James’s person at all times, apparently informing Pepper and Rhodey of the arrival of their guests. James doesn’t know why they need to know, but it’s comforting, he thinks. Comforting to know that someone who loves and respects Tony as much as he does is also in their corner with the Rogues coming back to the states. 

Rogers will be allowed back into the states. 

It’s Wednesday, a week and a day after the call that started this week long anxiety attack, and James has had three meetings with Theresa in that time. One last Wednesday, one Friday, and one at his regular time on Tuesday. He doesn’t know the details of the Rogues coming back yet, as T’Challa’s original phone call had been delightfully vague. He had just said something about the Rogues, something about visiting beforehand, something about details that were better discussed in person. 

James leans into Tony and Tony just puts his arms around James’s shoulders instead of asking. It’s nice. 

James drops a stitch when he hears a knock on the door. Tony stands but communicates silently for James to stay seated, which James doesn’t mind doing at all. Things are oftentimes better if Tony deals with the parts that have to do with people, and James respects that. Tony open the door and James can hear voices echoing down the hallway, Shuri’s the loudest and most bright, and James feels something in himself relax. It’s just Princess Shuri after all, just one of his future people with her bright eyes and her inventions and adventures, and she’s just a kid, just like Harley and Peter. He stands and sets down his knitting with a marker in it so he doesn’t lose his place. 

“Hello,” James greets as he walks into the foyer, and Shuri jumps on him immediately. She wraps herself around him much like Harley does and James finds himself smiling, pleased and affectionate. He wraps her up in a return of the hug, soft and safe, and he feels good about it. T’Challa and Okoye seem shocked by his new ease with touch, but neither of them seem displeased by it; Okoye is even smiling. 

“You are getting along well, white boy! You’re not even underweight anymore, look at you! Anthony tells me there is someone I need to meet. Where is this Littlefoot?” Shuri asks, grinning up at James. James grins back and takes her hand, dragging her back to the living room where Littlefoot is lounging on the couch. He releases the princess and points her in the direction of the robotic cat, smiling at the way she takes to Shuri immediately. 

“Harley and Peter made her. I got her for Christmas,” James informs, trailing his fingers in front of Littlefoot’s face before sitting down on the floor in front of her. Princess Shuri sits right down on the floor beside him, tapping the little cat on the nose before doing the same as James had, leading the cat with her fingers. 

“I have never had a pet before. It was always something not for princes and princesses, not for royalty at all. The closest I have is the Dora’s war rhinos, and while they love to be pet, they are quite large. It’s never even occurred to me to do something like this. Do you think these boys, this Harley and Peter, would be willing to meet me?” Shuri asks, eyes bright. She likes to smooth a fine layer of insecurity over the fact that she’s the princess of an entire country, knowing that one will not say no knowing what she is, but James knows she would rather want someone to want to know her for  _ who  _ she is. James believes she deserves at least that much, if not so much more. 

“Harley and Peter love to meet kids like them. You’ll fit right in, genius,” he says, going out of his way to bump their shoulders together. She bumps him back. 

“You are doing well, James. Doctor Stark tells me that is the name you are using these days. That you are cooking, and knitting, and being your own man. Going to therapy. You have come far from the man who hid in my laboratory. I am proud of you,” she tells him, and James feels choked up. He focuses on Littlefoot instead of looking at Shuri, unable to make himself look even in her general direction with maybe crying. She’s very young, to be so wise. James wishes he could hoard from the distance that she needs to be the princess of a land that deserves better than this world. 

“I’m doin’ alright,” he says instead of anything he is thinking. He wants to spare Shuri the heaviness of his occasional thoughts, the weight that he keeps in his chest that tastes like the past and feels like the future. Shuri reaches over and ruffles his hair, affectionate and all the better for it. 

“Alright, white wolf. Tell me how you feel about Stark then. How are you faring in California?” Shuri asks. James knows that she has bad associations with areas of California, though he doesn’t really know why; he just knows the way that her mouth twisted when she said it before he left for New York, and the way that she looks more settled in it now. Like she has mourned something that she had only just learned she lost. 

“Tony is… he’s good. One of the best people I’ve ever met. California is good. It’s warm here, even in winter. I think I like that,” he explains, shrugging his shoulders. Shuri is giving him a shitty little grin, and he knows that he’s somehow said too much. He’s lost on how he did so, saying so little. 

“Your face when you say Stark’s name is extraordinary. Say it again. Work with me here,” Shuri needles him, and James hides his face in his hands for a moment. Tony hadn’t talked about the almost-kiss after it had happened, and despite his hangups, James can dig out what that means: Tony never meant for it to happen in the first place. There are a lot of reasons one would not want to kiss James, all of them completely valid, and James does not begrudge him the caution. James would be cautious as well. 

“It’s nothing, Princess. Let’s move on,” James suggests, and then he hears the footsteps of the king, Okoye and Tony coming down the hall. Shuri begins to say something in protest, but James puts a finger over his lips, silencing her effectively. When her brother comes into the room, the princess understands. Madame Okoye follows, and James drops his head in a bow first; she is an excellent warrior, and he respects her extremely. She gives him a smile and a nod of her own, and he is honored. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” the king says, and James does not flinch. Theresa is helping him with that. He gives a nod and stands to bow, but T’Challa holds up a staying hand, using it to catch James’s hand in his own, giving it a firm shake. James still gives a short bow, just a downward motion of his head, but T’Challa still rolls his eyes. James likes this king who treats him almost as an equal, even if he is on the rather long list of people who have made attempts on James’s life. “I’m afraid I come with news that does not bode well for you,” T’Challa admits, and James looks at Tony. The other man is giving him a weak, watered down version of his smile, and James’s shoulders sag. 

“When do I need to leave the country by?” James asks, scrubbing a hand down his face before planting his gaze firmly on the floor. Instead of T’Challa, it is Tony who answers. 

“If you want to stay with your ass firmly planted in this house for the rest of your life, they will never remove you from this country. Over my dead fucking body. That’s not what Kit-Kat is here to tell you, Snowflake. Let him tell you, alright?” Tony clarifies, his tone a thing of iron, and James feels a part of himself relax. Tony does not lie to him, even when things are difficult, so James feels safer. 

“Now that those worries are put to bed, what actually brings me here is arguably worse. The Accords have been hammered out and rediscussed, as well as agreed upon by all members of the Accords council,” T’Challa explains, and that’s surprising. With one hundred and seventeen countries united, there are at least three hundred and fifty representatives that must agree for that to be true. James waits for how this concerns him. “With the Accords, the Rogue Avengers are to be… admitted back into the United States. Part of the agreement is that they will regain their living quarters at the previous Avengers compound. With Doctor Anthony Stark present.” 

“What?” James asks, looking at Tony and hating himself as his voice breaks. Tony looks like he wants to reach out but doesn’t know how to do it in front of a king, and James understands and yet longs still for the comfort. T’Challa is of an expression that communicates his apology, but he does not relent. 

“You have been cleared of all charges, Sergeant, and you may be at the compound as well, if that is your wish,” the king clarifies, and while James relaxes, he also tenses in a different sense. Living in the same quarters as the Rogues is probably a bad idea, but it’s a worse one to live in a different place from Tony, unwise to trust himself alone. And with that, Tony would be left alone with the Rogues, something that James shan’t be allowing. They couldn’t be trusted with Tony before they went off the deep end, let alone now. 

“When do we need to be at the compound?” James asks, setting his shoulders. He is only made more determined to go through with it when the tension drains out of Tony’s shoulders, like he had expected James to leave him to the wolves. James can never do that, not when Tony had… Tony Stark had saved his life. There is no doubt about that, and James will be happily repaying that debt for the rest of his days. 

“The Rogues will be delivered from Wakanda on this Saturday. There will be a team of Dora Milaje with them, lead by Okoye. The Dora will return to Wakanda post-haste. Is this accommodating? Other arrangements can be made if needed,” the king offers, to which Tony shakes his head. 

“That will be fine, your majesty. We’ll figure it out. I assume you will not be accompanying the Rogues on their return then?” Tony asks. Hearing him speak so professionally is almost off-putting, but James enjoys it in a way; it’s still Tony, but clean, put together. The kind of Tony that James could recognise from the interviews, and the kind of Tony that James doesn’t miss seeing every day. He prefers Tony covered in motor oil, hair pushed back with goggles, grinning like he’s the one who set the house on fire. He prefers Tony  _ beautiful,  _ and that’s best reached by his natural state. James tunes back in as the Black Panther laughs, and he is his own kind of beautiful as well. 

“No, I will not. The council is already against the stay of the Rogues for this long, let alone for their king to go along with them to send the Rogues off. There is no reason for me to accompany them. Unless that would help you? Arrangements can be made,” T’Challa clarifies again, and James does like him. For a man that once tried very hard to kill him for something he didn’t do, T’Challa is quite decent. 

“We can make do, your majesty. Thank you for the personal warning,” Tony says, and then he turns to Okoye. “We’ll see you on the weekend?” he proposes, and Okoye smiles. Tony really is a charmer. 

“So you will. Goodbye Doctor Stark, Sergeant Barnes,” she replies. 

“Madame Okoye,” James says back, just because he can. 

_ “Boy,”  _ she answers as she always does, and James laughs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a kudos and a comment!


	13. delirium

Tony is buzzing around the room and James does not know how to help. He’s moved from seat to seat, picking at his skin and James’s nerves, but he will not be losing his temper on Tony today. The genius is under a lot of stress and for some strange reason, that helps James deal with his own. James stands when Tony moves this time, moving into the man’s way and spreading his arms wide. Tony steps into him and puts his forehead on James’s collarbone, sinking into him. 

“Tell me that this will be fine,” Tony requests, and James slicks a hand through the other man’s hair. 

“Everything will be fine, Tones. There will be consequences if they shouldn’t behave,” James promises vaguely, a cruel smile crawling over his face. He will gladly level Captain America if it is what needs to happen, and the Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye are not far behind in that. If any of them so much as look at Tony in a way that makes him feel even remotely uncomfortable, it may just set off the Winter Soldier, regardless of the fact that the Winter Soldier has not been an accessible state, as it were, in months. Tony relaxes against him and James feels vindicated in wanting to hurt people who hurt Tony; the man deserves some relaxation. James will do what he can to provide it. 

“Boss, Sarge, the transport vehicle has just crossed into the perimeter,” Friday warns, and Tony tenses all over again. James runs a hand over his back and then releases the other man, shooting off a text to his groupchat with Harley and Peter. The boys had asked for active updates, wanting to make sure that they could convince teachers to turn on the news for the Rogues coming back to the compound. They had had twin complaints of not being there, wanting to support both Tony and James, though James had mostly put those to rest; both he himself and Colonel Rhodes are going to be here, after all. Harley still had protests, but he’s a protective kid. 

“Time to walk out,” Friday advises, and the two of them follow. There are paparazzi all over the place, but it’s obvious that Tony is comfortable with the leeches. It’s the armored car that’s contributing more to his sense of unrest, which he puts away in front of the cameras. He’s all smiles once they’re outside, waving towards people he finds familiar and shooting off greetings with gusto. It’s just a distraction for himself, James knows, and he likes the way that Tony looks when he’s playing for the camera. He doesn’t like it as much as, say, lab Tony with a wide grin, playing around with the boys and things that explode, but it’s not half bad. He doesn’t think anything with Tony as a major player is going to be half bad. 

“Bucky!” James hears as soon as a car door opens, and he closes his eyes, fighting the impulse to scrub his hand down his face. He almost forgot about his own relationship with the good Captain, so caught up in the ways that Tony would need to be protected from those who don’t respect him. Now, James is caught off guard by all of the exits that come to mind right now. He won’t be leaving Tony’s side. He ignores Rogers. 

“Captain Rogers,” Tony says for the cameras, “It’s good to have you back.” He sticks his hand out for Rogers to shake and he doesn’t even flinch. James wants to put himself between Tony and the threat, but that won’t look good for the cameras either. Barton is scowling while the witch looks like the cat who caught the canary, and James wants her dead. Wilson and Lang hang in the background looking ten different shades of awkward, almost as if they understand how unwelcome they  _ should  _ be here. James feels himself opening more to the possibility of liking Wilson or Lang and wants to shut himself back up, but he allows it. As many allies as he can get around here, after all. 

“Good to be back,” Rogers says after ripping his eyes away from James, who hadn’t even deigned to look at him until this moment. The Captain looks broken by the very implication that James would not be so aggressively infatuated with the idea of seeing him again as Rogers so obviously is, and James does not even remotely care. He could not possibly care less. The emotions of Steve Rogers are not his job; they were a part of Bucky’s register, not his. Now, Steve Rogers may just have to take care of himself. 

“We are unfortunately not taking any questions today! If you would like to set up an interview appointment with any Avenger, former rogue or not, you may contact the professional office of Tony Stark! You will be directed beyond that point. Please clear off of the premises within the next ten minutes, or you will be escorted,” James Rhodes says into the microphone after Tony and Rogers greet each other on the steps, and James’s favor for the man who shares his name grows. He likes him already for loving and protecting Tony Stark, but he’s earning favor of his own by the minute. 

“Bucky -” Rogers starts as soon as they’re inside, but James breaks off. Tony has to be gone this afternoon, signing some papers and finalizing the results of the Rogues coming back, but that does not mean James cannot be in the lab. It’s different in New York, whether at the tower or at the compound, but it still has the same comfort. His insides are crawling with the use of a dead man’s name, and James is  _ not  _ Bucky, no matter how much more convenient it would be if he was, and he doesn’t - he’s come  _ too far.  _ He’s come too far to only come this far. He can’t let Rogers scramble his brains. 

Peter comes next weekend. Peter will be here and James will feel fine, even when Tony has to be doing legal shit. Tony told James that he’ll be busy for the first couple of weeks, busy all the time kind of busy, and James wants him around. James wants Tony around so badly that he’ll hide out in the lab and rage, rather than be somewhere that doesn’t feel like Tony and smells like new people and feels bad. He does not like to be in the common areas anyway, let alone with new people. 

“Captain Rogers is asking after you, James. You want to go see him or do you want me to tell him to fuck off?” Friday asks, and James grins at her language even if he doesn’t particularly like the content of what she said. He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face like he wanted to earlier. It’s not like Rogers will stop. He’ll only get worse if James puts this off, and he’ll blame Tony and he’ll make it into some big thing as the Captain is so dramatically wont to do. James looks up at the ceiling. 

“You’ll be with me?” he asks, even though he knows the answer. Friday is always with him, even when he’s asleep. 

“I’ll be with you. And, if he upsets you, the sprinklers above his head may malfunction. And you may have some sort of window to leave. Perhaps,” Friday says conspiratorially, and James loves her. She is more than code, she’s Tony’s kid through and through and James loves her like his own. 

“Thanks, Fri,” he says as he exits the lab, entering an elevator. “Light the way?” he requests. Even when she cannot direct him past the elevator, Friday has always been one to use the lights in the walls to direct James when she can. He finds it reassuring, in a way, to know that she’s there in such a physical way. 

“I told him that  _ James  _ was on his way. Is that okay? Should I have referred to you as Sergeant Barnes?” Friday asks unsurely just before James gets out of the elevator, and James smiles at her nearest camera. 

“It’s okay, ma’am. It’ll help, I think,” he replies, and then he’s stepping out of the elevator and onto the main floor. The Rogues will be staying on the main floor of the compound, this floor, while the lab is beneath and the penthouse, Tony’s floor, is two floors up. It’s not very high, not like the tower, but Tony calls it the penthouse anyway, so James naturally follows suit. Friday shows James the way to the kitchen, and he watches the twinkling of the lights instead of looking forward. He does not want to look at Rogers too soon, does not want to invite more conversation than strictly necessary. And, Friday always makes the lights rainbow anyway, and they’re very pretty. 

“Bucky,” Rogers greets as soon as James comes into sight, and James keeps his sigh internal this time. “Why does Stark’s AI call you James?” Rogers asks, and James is about half a second from losing his shit, but he doesn’t. It’s the careful resolve of a soldier that keeps James within his own carefully laid parameters, the ones that he set for himself, just this once. He won’t be losing his temper on Rogers within less than ten hours of the man arriving, because it will only look like James cannot hold himself together. If it happens, it needs to be premeditated, careful, and able to angle. 

“Because it’s my name. I prefer James,” James clarifies shortly, raising an eyebrow in challenge. Rogers looks immediately concerned, and James does not roll his eyes, but it is a very near thing. Harley and Peter would roll their eyes right now, James knows, and the false commiseration helps. 

“You’ve always hated the name James. Did Stark -” Rogers starts, but James holds up a hand, actually sighing aloud now. 

“He’s putting a roof over your head, feeding you and currently assuring your freedom. Either show him some respect and call him  _ Doctor Stark,  _ or show him some compassion and call him  _ Tony.  _ Your call, Rogers,” James instructs, and he’s about to turn and leave, but Barton is standing just down the hall. Knowing that the archer will find some way to make this conversation more painful, James closes his eyes for a moment, fighting the impulse to roll them. Barton is scowling, though his expression is morphing into some shitty little grin that makes James want to clock him before he can speak. 

“What, so Stark has you trained as his guard dog? Can’t speak for himself?” Barton asks. James takes a moment to contemplate what the other man just said, because he cannot honestly be expected to comprehend as much stupidity and arrogance just went into that utterance. James cannot punch Barton. Barton is human, unenhanced, and James will not be sent away from Tony and Harley and Peter and Friday and everything of this future that he likes for killing Clint Barton. Luckily, Rogers seems to take offense to this as he turns on Barton, giving him a glare that reads like secret code. 

“Clint, you can’t just say things like that. Bucky, I’m sorry for him,” Rogers says, and James wonders where exactly he missed the point. Instead of asking, James just rolls his eyes and heads back to the elevator. He tried, okay? He went, he saw, he got annoyed and didn’t break anyone’s jaw. He thinks that’s a win, and he texts the groupchat with the boys about it, to which he gets twin eye roll emojis. He knew they would. 

“Bucky - James! I just want to talk -” Rogers is calling after James, rushing toward the elevator as James steps into it, but Friday closes it shut. It’s a bit faster than it usually is, and he leans against the wall of the elevator gratefully. 

“Penthouse, James?” Friday asks, and James just nods. The penthouse, at least, will only smell like him and Tony and a little bit of Harley and Peter because of Littlefoot wandering around, and no one will speak to James without his permission. The lab and the penthouse are both locked down like Fort Knox when it comes to the Rogues (though James can generate approximately thirty ways to break into Fort Knox, it’s more the comparison that matters). James will likely be making a lot of use of these safe spaces when he’s alone, even if the penthouse is supposed to be just Tony’s, and even if they haven’t moved workout equipment into the lab yet. It doesn’t matter. 

Any space of Tony’s is more comfortable than any common area. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and Comment!


	14. lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting in the morning out here in EST because I'm going out today! Hope you guys enjoy the early update.

Peter is here, and that’s the only reason that James is willing to watch television on the common floor. The kid is in casual clothes throwing popcorn at the screen as some comedian cracks a few jokes about Iron Man on his new special. Peter says that they’re “hate watching” it, which James knows to mean that they’re watching some ripped copy as to not have any viewership or money donation in the interest of this comedian. The fact that Peter is sprawled across James and the rest of the couch is the only reason that James is okay with this; he’s missed physical contact without the kids around, with Tony off doing paperwork shit. He’s only been cooking for himself, and there are less leftovers with Peter underfoot as well. He’s missed his people. 

“Oh, that comedian is funny. He has this really good bit about the  _ Civil War  _ or whatever,” Barton comments as he slams onto another of the couches. James knows Peter feels it when he tenses based on the fact that the kid immediately relaxes, trying to make James do the same. James cards his fingers through Peter’s hair, careful and calming. He doesn’t need to freak out on Clint Barton, especially not in front of Peter. Despite his superhero persona, Peter is still so kind, so level, and he does not deserve to see the worst parts of James. He deserves the tamed version that he, Tony and Harley have engineered, and that’s the only one he will get. He deserves a better James. 

“We’re hate watching. This guy is a dick,” Peter says honestly, tilting his head with a smile that says he knows exactly what he’s doing. As far as the Rogues know, Peter is just Tony’s intern, someone that James trusts, and Clint slides a hard look at James, as if he’s going to rein the boy in. James just raises an eyebrow. 

“He’s made four transphobic jokes since we’ve began watching. I also hate this man,” James adds, shrugging a shoulder. Barton rolls his eyes as if James is the unreasonable one, focusing on the screen. 

“He doesn’t mean shit in the way that people these days would interpret it. He’s just an older guy,” Barton defends, and James does not punch him, and it is largely due to superhuman strength in the form of Peter Parker holding him down. From Barton’s angle, it likely doesn’t look like Peter even attempting anything of the sort. The boy is smart, and James mentally sings his praises; he’ll remember to compliment the strategic assets of Peter’s mind later, perhaps when Tony is already waxing the poetic of his classical intelligence. 

“Well, as someone with trans friends, I don’t exactly favor this fuckwit when he makes jokes about them!” Peter says, and he flashes a smile that is  _ dangerous,  _ and James loves Tony Stark for teaching Peter that. He loves the way that Peter has taken to press smiles and quick retorts, his smarts taken on a knife’s edge for anger, for protection. James gives Peter’s scalp a little scritch to show his approval and Peter grins up at him, though it’s still the  _ butter won’t melt in my mouth  _ expression to save for Barton. Speaking of which, Barton is still glaring in their general direction and James can’t even be bothered to give half a fuck, so he grabs the remote off of Peter’s stomach. 

“We’re done. Watch whatever the fuck you want,” James says before turning off the television and throwing the remote at Barton. He picks Peter up and slings him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes; he’s only a teenage boy, after all. Super strength or not, he’s still quite thin for his age, and James needs to send home food with him this time. Peter doesn’t bother to struggle even though he could definitely put James on his ass, and James would only praise him for the effort. Instead, he only taps James on the back when they’re in the elevator, and James puts him down readily. 

“I hate that guy,” Peter announces, and James smiles. 

“The comedian or Barton?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. He knows the answer, but he still wants the tirade. 

“Barton! He thinks he’s so entitled to Mr. Stark’s equipment and Mr. Stark’s money and Mr. Stark’s this and Mr. Stark’s that, and he’s such a dick! I’m gonna beat the shit out of him next time!” Peter vents, and it looks a bit silly, a scrawny teenage boy expressing his intent to beat the shit out of an international spy. Like the chaotic mess in Harley, this is the part of Peter that James feels the most personally infatuated in. The passion in Peter Parker is so different from James’s own disaffect that it’s encompassing to see, and he wants to nurture it. He wants to help Tony help this kid along. 

“You miss him?” James asks. Peter shouldn’t know off the bat who he’s talking about, but he deflates immediately. The kid is smart. The two of them walk out of the elevator and into the living room of the penthouse, crashing into the couch in much the same amalgamation of human pieces and metal as they had been downstairs. 

“All the time. Phone meetings were eating up his time before you guys moved states, and now that he’s here I still don’t see him. Mr. Stark has to go through all of this mess, and the Rogues get to sit around with his stuff,” Peter complains, huffing out through his nose. A thought strikes James. 

“Why do you still call him Mr. Stark? You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?” he asks, carding his metal fingers through Peter’s hair. Peter does not flinch like Rogers does when he so much as sees the metal hand, does not look at it with suspicion as the Witch openly does, but accepts the touch as if it’s normal. He had looked over it during his time in the house in California, and he does know more about it than most other people, but the comfort natural to Peter is different from most others. It comes from trust. 

“Honest answer?” Peter asks, and James cocks an eyebrow. 

“Obviously,” he says. 

“It’s so I don’t call him  _ Dad  _ or something,” Peter admits, and James stifles a laugh. Peter reacts immediately, hiding his face and reaching for a pillow to hit James with. 

“Shut up! You asked!” he says as he hits James, repeatedly smacking him in the head. James laughs and digs his fingers into Peter’s sides, tickling up and down, to which Peter screams. He stops when Peter grabs his wrists, taking his hands back up to Pete’s head to card through his hair. When Pete settles back down, James speaks again. 

“You know, Harley called me Dad once,” he says, offhand because it doesn’t matter in the way that Peter and Harley would worry it does. It matters in that James adores both of them with his whole heart, but it’s not something embarrassing. Peter looks up at him with a look that’s mixed fondness, confusion and something a little more fragile, something that makes James want to tell more of the story. “I was waking him up for breakfast one morning, and he said  _ Five more minutes, Dad,  _ in his morning-Harley whiney voice,” James provides, a reminiscent smile taking over his features. 

“He did that?” Peter asks, careful, and James just nods. 

“Tony won’t make fun of you if you slip up, Pete. I didn’t make fun of Harley. Just start calling him Tony. I bet he’ll love it,” James suggests, shrugging his shoulders. 

“I’ll give it a try,” Peter says, though his expression is still doubtful. James decides to switch gears. 

“So, now that we have that out of the way, speaking of Harley…” James begins, and Peter sits up, scrambling to the other side of the couch. He puts up his hands like he’s going to square up against James and the man just laughs, flashing him a smirk. He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head in Peter’s direction, who groans. 

“Shut up.  _ Tony  _ has already had this kinda talk with me. I know you’re really protective of him, and I can totally tone it down if you want, he’s just so cute and so nice and so smart -” Peter is rambling and James holds up a hand, making Peter stop on a dime. James softens out his smile and gives Peter a look of confusion. 

“I’m protective of you too, kiddo. And if you’re obvious, I don’t know what Harls is, but it’s not anything less than you. I was gonna tell you to tell me if he ever hurts your feelings, not the other way around. I figure you can handle whether or not you should hurt his feelings. You’re a smart kid, Pete. I trust you with him, and I trust him with you. You’re good kids, and you deserve to be happy if this is what you want,” James explains stiltedly, feeling very much out of his depth in this conversation. The Winter Soldier is not meant for conversations with teenagers about their feelings, about soft things and new things and things so delicate James feels he could never touch them with his stained hands. 

“Wait, you think - you think he likes me back?” Peter asks, and his voice is so small that James wishes Peter was still on this side of the couch. Instead of just wishing, James moves himself, sliding over to put his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Kid, if you don’t see how he looks at you, you might just be blind,” he says with a grin, moving his hand off of Peter’s shoulder to ruffle the kid’s hair. 

“James!” Peter complains, and James laughs. He stands and grabs the remote from the table, tossing it at Peter. 

“I’m gonna make lunch. You figure out some shit to watch. Any preference on food?” he asks. Peter shakes his head, but then immediately looks as if he’s about to speak, which is something he often does. Peter doesn’t like to inconvenience people, no matter how many times James and Tony both assure him that he’s never an inconvenience. 

“Do we have the stuff to make those veggie burgers you and Harley made a couple of days into my visit?” Peter asks, and his voice is always so soft when he wants things. James asks Friday if they have the materials, to which the AI gives an affirmative, so James just gives the kid a thumbs up. “Thanks, James,” Peter says quietly. He turns away from James and sets up some cartoon movie, one of the ones that Peter and Harley have agreed are essential to James’s movie education. While some of the movies are required to wait until Harley is personally available, many are Peter’s love children, and James has to watch all of the movies anyway, so he may as well watch some with Peter. 

He’s not allowed to watch any of them for the first time on his own, though there is a list of  _ shows  _ he’s allowed to watch alone. It’s very convoluted. James loves it. 

He goes through everything of making the burgers slowly; he hasn’t asked Tony if he can rearrange this kitchen yet, too nervous to do it on his own, and right now he has Peter here, so it can wait. He’ll ask to rearrange it sometime when he’s alone, lonely and bored and wanting his friends, and he’ll maybe video chat Harley if the kid is out of school, it’ll be a whole thing. He puts sweet potato waffle fries in the oven despite the fact that the kid didn’t ask for them, because Peter always wants waffle fries. He likes the way they look when dipped in multiple sauces, and James loves how much he knows about his boys. He sets up four sauce cups for Pete because he doesn’t like when sauce gets all over the plate and it feels very domestic, and James smiles. 

“Food,” he announces when it’s done, only to turn around and find Peter sitting atop the counter. The kid is probably one of the only people in the known universe who can manage to get a drop on James, and it’s only because he communicates himself across the ceiling just as often as the floor. James throws a piping hot waffle fry at him, taking a leaf out of Harley and Tony’s books, and smiles even more when Peter just catches it, popping it into his mouth. 

He outright laughs when Peter spits it out as it burns his tongue. 


	15. overcome

James is alone again. 

Well, the Rogues are spread out over the compound like everlasting leeches, sucking out James’s sense of safety that he usually gets from the mix of Friday and a space that belongs to Tony. He wants for California badly, but he would take the Tower at this point. Anything with free run, more space, more locked down security, and most of all, the bots. Tony doesn’t want them at risk, so he won’t bring Dum-e, U, or Butterfingers to the lab here, and James misses their little beeps. He’s of the same persuasion as Tony, preferring their safety to his own comfort, but he wants Tony, and the bots would at least be a part of him. Tony treats them like children anyway. 

In moving himself from the lab, which has workout equipment now so that James can be in a place that is wholly Tony while working out, James finds himself running into most of the Rogues. The witch, Barton, Rogers, Wilson and Lang are all sitting in the living room with only the Widow missing. James doesn’t see much of her. He can’t say that he is angry or even upset about her absence. 

“Bu - James! You should come sit down with us,” Rogers proclaims as James attempts to pass through. James considers his options: avoid, and get some sort of negative reaction now, or suffer through now and avoid interaction later. He gauges his mood and sighs, sitting in the free chair that has some distance from the rest of the furniture in the living room despite the fact that there is a free space on the couch next to Rogers. He does not care even slightly as Rogers’s expression falls. 

“What do you need?” James asks, cold and calculating, which Barton and Wilson both seem to take offense to. 

“Do we have to need something? Where were you even going?” Barton asks as if it’s any of his business, and James turns his cold glare in the archer’s direction. 

“I was going up to the penthouse,” he answers shortly, and Barton snorts. Whatever ill begotten humor that the amusement stems from, James does not know, but he only raises an eyebrow instead of asking. He’s not really curious about the motivation, only curious on whether or not he needs to beat the shit out of Barton himself, enhanced or not. 

“Why does Stark need a whole fucking floor to himself? All of us are packed in like sardines down here, but Stark is sitting pretty at the top like always,” Barton growls out. James stays his own hand, but it’s a just-barely type of thing, just barely non-violent, just barely staying on the side of the law that Tony would prefer James on. 

“While he does own the entire building, and having an entire floor to himself would definitely be his right, other people live up there. Just because you don’t always see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” James says. He doesn’t tack on the fact that he wants to call Barton a dipshit, but it is also a just-barely kind of thing. Rogers tilts his head and James waits for the fact that he’s going to have to hear Rogers’s voice, already rolling his eyes internally in still preparation. 

“More than just Tony lives up there?” Rogers asks, and James nearly actually does roll his fucking eyes.

“Where do you think I go at night?” James says, tilting his head hard to communicate exactly how easy of a conclusion that was. Rogers blinks as if this is a revelation, and James is beginning to get a migraine. 

“Who else lives up there?” the Witch asks. James considers, briefly but harshly, just telling her to get fucked instead of informing her. The Vision is still exploring the world because he does not want to be around her, and James knows how it hurts Tony’s feelings, and James knows she did something else to fuck Tony up, even if he doesn’t know exactly what she did, and it’s enough to make a man violent. He answers anyway, just to show these people exactly what goes on. 

“I’m the only one staying on a permanent basis right now - even Tony is in and out of hotels right now for Accords counsel, but a lot of us have rooms. Harley’s room is up there, and so is Peter’s, and Spider-Man has a room if he ever needs it, and Colonel Rhodes rooms up there, and Miss Potts and Happy have a room. There’s a guest room for the Guardians and there’s a room clearly designed for Bruce Banner, and there’s two more that I don’t know who they’re designed for,” James explains in a deadpan tone, counting off the rooms on his fingers. There are two rooms for Peter just in case, both set up with the high vaulted ceilings and open glass panelling that Tony finds necessary for the kid because of his claustrophobia, and he gets taken care of. 

“The Guardians?” Lang asks, and James wonders exactly how much this man just doesn’t know about the universe. 

“Guardians of the Galaxy. Peter Quill, Gamora, Nebula, Drax the Destroyer, Mantis, Groot, and Rocket. They’re aliens, besides Quill, all heroes, and friends of Tony’s,” James says stiltedly. Tony has told him stories about them on occasion, and promised to invite Gamora and Nebula so that he could have more research material on prosthetics, either to improve James’s or to improve those of the women from space. James is still wrapping his head around space travel and exploration (aliens!) as a concept, but it is one of the facets of the future he finds himself more and more fascinated with. Bucky had loved the stars. 

“Aliens,” Barton says, barking and short, and James gives him a sharp look. “Of course Stark is friends with aliens. They’ve only been the enemy in every major incident the Avengers have fucked with. Except, you know, the one that was Tony’s fucking fault.” James breathes out through his nose. 

“I cannot afford to commit an act of violence against you, so I will be going upstairs now.” James stands and walks robotically to the elevator, something that Tony affectionately calls his murder strut, and James is calmed slightly by the imagining of Tony’s voice. Rogers catches his arm as he steps over the threshold of the elevator. 

“He was just saying it like it is, Buck. He didn’t mean to offend you. You weren’t there,” Rogers protests, and James wrenches his arm out of Rogers’s grip. 

“My name,” he says, “is James. And so long as you have the Witch sitting in there on the couch, protecting her like she’s some kid and not a grown ass adult who chose to go to HYDRA, you can both fucking shove it.” He shoves Rogers a step backwards and Friday snaps the elevator shut, sending him upward. 

“I do not like him,” Friday says, admits really, and James smiles. 

“That’s okay, ma’am. I don’t think I do either. Can you ask Tony if I can rearrange the kitchen?” he asks. He could text Tony himself, but he occasionally likes to give Friday something to do. She typically prefers to be busy. Friday hums before she speaks, all too human in getting James’s attention. 

“Boss figured you already had, and he says that you can move around stuff in other rooms if you want. He figures you know Harley and Pete well enough to help them out if you want. Everything in their rooms was arranged by someone else,” Friday reports, and James nods. 

“Thanks, Friday. I’ll get on that,” he replies, and then he’s off. He does the kitchen first, because it’s where he spends most of his time that he’s actively doing things that aren’t working out or knitting (he still loom knits and he’s attempting at crochet, but he’s working on a project right now). He rearranges the fridge so that the condiments are in the door, so that the fake meat products are in the bottom drawers, so that the fresh veggies are in the crisper. He arranges the cabinets and pantry like he’s still one-handed, just in case. Pots and pans are arranged by level of use, utensils by categories, and James is satisfied when everything looks together and pretty. 

Once he leaves the kitchen, he goes to the living room. There’s a bar and a mini fridge in there that James usually uses to make smoothies and milkshakes for himself and for Peter (and Harley, whenever he should come and visit). He puts all of the milk and milk by-products to one side, the colder side of the mini fridge. Fruits go in the crisper and he rotates the ice box, making sure it breaks the ice apart. It’s calming to take care of everything, knowing that it will care for himself, Tony and the boys at a later date. 

He sends Littlefoot to her charging station as he gets out the vacuum; he doesn’t let Tony have cleaner bots on this floor because they scare Little, and Tony doesn’t mind. James doesn’t mind the cleaning, so what little communication they manage to have over text doesn’t grow tense with little things to argue about. Tony is always flitting from meeting to meeting, from person to person, and James misses him. He only sees him like once a week, just when he stops through for the legal requirement of residing in the same place as the Rogues. James is glad that Tony doesn’t have to be around his betrayers as much, but he just wishes that  _ he  _ could have Tony more. 

Rogers asks James about Tony occasionally, and he can tell that the blonde wants to speak to Tony. As much as James would like to put a stop to that shit before it could even begin, he knows that Tony will want to fight his own battles. Instead, James gives a forceful misdirection that leads Rogers to believe that Tony will be going to the lab when he first arrives home once a week, instead of his actual occupation of the penthouse to crash when he arrives. Rogers isn’t allowed to enter either, but this way, he camps out near the front of the house rather than at the back external elevator. It’s likely not something a good, honest person would do, but James does not claim to be either. 

James moves into Harley’s bedroom and pushes the bed against the wall; the kid can’t stand to have it in the middle of the room, has a pathological need to line pillows against the nearest vertical surface. He usually puts his back to the door so that he doesn’t have to think about everyone else in the building, so James puts the bed opposite the door entirely. He grabs some of the spare pillows from the hall closet and sets them up on Harley’s bed, putting them in light blue pillowcases. Harley likes to theme things red and blue, swearing it’s not a Spider-Man reference, but James knows. 

After Harley’s, he goes to Peter’s. The kid had stayed here just a week ago, so it’s a fucking mess. As polite as the kid is, as much as he wants to do the best and be the best and not be trouble, he’s still a teenage boy. It’s not trashed with dirty laundry or blankets strewn everywhere, but there are five books spread out on the bedside table, a textbook that Peter is likely missing on the desk, and little bits of tech all over the floor, like Peter had been inventing and walking. James picks them up fondly, tucking them into desk drawers by color, arranging them carefully. It’s like straightening up the lab, picking up after all three of them and seeing all three of them every day. 

James is startled by how lonely he feels as he sits down on Peter’s bed. He didn’t think he was able to feel lonely, but now he knows. He wants Tony. He wants Harley. He wants Peter. He wants Tony and the kids and the house in California. 

He wants to go home. 


	16. window

James can be social. He’s sitting in the living room with intentions of staying there a while, after all, and it’s not  _ only  _ because Harley arrives today. Well, it’s mostly because Harley arrives today, and James had been ticking out up stairs. That’s what Theresa calls his physical motions when he’s otherwise idle,  _ ticks,  _ and James has adapted to calling it ‘ticking out’ when it’s beginning to upset him. At least downstairs he can be distracted by being just as off putting as possible, keeping Barton, Rogers and the Witch on their toes. Lang and Wilson have adapted to James’s presence, Wilson even offering him a fist bump whenever he sees James. He almost likes Wilson. 

He hears the car drive up but stays in his seat; it’s what Harley has asked of him, for whatever reason, so James will provide this one thing. Rogers, Romanov, Barton and Wilson are seated in the living room with him, and all of the men startle as a teenager comes barrelling through the door, dropping his suitcase in the entryway. 

“Jimbo!” Harley yells as he runs across the room, hopping clear over the coffee table and onto James’s lap. James stands up and pulls Harley into a full body hug, lifting the boy clear off of the ground. Harley is about the same height as Tony, so it’s certainly not hard to get his tiny form up. 

“Hey kiddo,” James says as he squeezes Harley a little tighter before setting the kid down. “How was your trip?” he asks as he ruffles Harley’s hair. It’s curly, and getting a bit longer around his ears, and it almost looks unnatural without being pushed back by the safety goggles that are definitely meant to go on his face. Harley groans and pushes James back down, crawling into the chair with him and sitting on the arm of it. Only his legs are in James’s lap, and James sets his elbows on them. 

“Planes suck. Why couldn’t Tony come get me?” Harley asks, even though he definitely knows the answer. James wonders exactly how much of the kid’s behavior is a showing for the current audience. Romanov certainly looks enraptured, though she attempts to cover it; Rogers and Barton don’t even make a good attempt to cover their open confusion. Wilson seems to just be rolling with it; good man. 

“You know he’s in meetings right now. I’m sure I could have come to get you - I can pilot just as well as Tony can. I’ll do that next time he’s not around, and take you home too. How about that?” James offers for next time, brokering an agreement with the kid easy as pie. Harley considers for a moment and then nods before looking at the rest of the people in the room. He does not look impressed. 

“Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye and the Black Widow?” Harley asks James as he points at them, to which James nods to each. Harley openly rolls his eyes and James smirks, pleased. “Should we go upstairs, Jimbo?” Rogers scrambles for a moment, wide eyed, and James holds back the vindictive in him that’s too pleased to keep quiet. Barton looks affronted, as if every child is meant to hero worship him (even if Harley is nearly an adult himself). Wilson, again, seems accepting of the behavior; Romanov is expressionless. 

“What’s your name, kid?” Steve asks, though it really just looks like he wants something,  _ anything,  _ to make them stay. Harley slides his eyes over to him in a way that communicates that a high schooler is  _ deigning  _ to make eye contact with Captain America. He gives Rogers an up and down look before speaking. 

“Harley,” he says, and then he stands out of James’s chair, pulling the super soldier up after him. He’s not even nearly strong enough to pull James anywhere, but James allows it easily; he’s not good at denying the kid things. Except things in the category of eating one meal a day or sleeping two hours a night - that, James will not allow in his house. Even if they’re not in his house right now. He aches for California as he follows Harley to get his bag and then head for the elevator. 

“You guys don’t have to go upstairs!” Rogers protests, his voice edging on desperate. “Bucky, we’d love to get to know Harley.” Harley, who had been facing away from Rogers to go down the hallway, turns on a dime. He gives Rogers a fierce look. James feels strangely protected by Harley in this moment, even if he would be the one to jump between the kid and the superheroes should anything untoward happen. If anything happens at all, James would kill everyone in the room and then perhaps himself. Brooklyn 99 is one of the few live action shows that Harley and Pete will agree on. 

“His  _ name  _ is  _ James,”  _ Harley says through clenched teeth, and James gives a sharp smirk behind him. Rogers looks both agog  _ and  _ aghast, which is only a reference James can make because Harley made him watch  _ Les Miserables  _ months ago. James flashes teeth that could cut glass as Harley drags him toward the elevator looking madder than a hornet. Barton is scowling, but Barton is always scowling. What matters is that Roger has not collected his expression yet, and James will have the memory of his kid devastating Steve Rogers in his brain forever. 

“For the next ten minutes, you are my favorite of the Stark children. Friday, you resume your position thereafter,” James reports as they get into the elevator, dropping a kiss in Harley’s hair. Harley gives a pump of his fist, cheering shortly before apparently deciding to give it up. He still looks angry, but James doesn’t know how to help with that. If anything, James is usually good for making people  _ more  _ angry, not less. 

“I hate Captain America,” Harley says grimly, walking out of the elevator as soon as it opens. James follows and hops onto the counter after Harley does; it’s not his usual preferred seating, but Harley historically prefers to be on a similar level while having what he refers to as ‘serious’ discussions. 

James makes a gesture for Harley to go on, and the boy sighs. 

“It goes back a long time, but… it’s mostly the video from Siberia. I got Friday to let me see it with some minor hacking, and you… you were brainwashed and fucked up and tortured and shit we’re not supposed to talk about, but him? He’s got no fuckin’ excuses, Jimbo. He’s just an asshole,” Harley explains, scowling. He’s getting puffy around the eyes like he does when he’s angry or frustrated, meaning he’s about two minutes away from crying. James moves closer to him on the counter and puts an arm around his shoulders; the kid is still pretty dependent on physical touch, and James still doesn’t mind. 

“What do you mean it goes back a long time?” James asks for the context of it, but his voice is quiet. Mostly, he wants Harley to keep talking so the kid won’t break down. Harley is likely Tony that way - loud to cover up the shit that makes him cry. 

“Oh, woe is me, I’m a cis het-passing white man who now has no physical ailments but it’s still all about me! I have the most difficult life on this planet because I’m a famous superhero who now has the potential to get excessively rich off of merchandise dealings. Woe is me!” Harley impersonates, his nose wrinkled as he gives a whinier impression of Rogers’s Captain Speech Voice. Jame snorts and ruffles Harley’s hair like he had down stairs, though now he’s more pressing the kid’s face into his own collarbone, pulling him closer. 

“Even I can admit he’s had a difficult life, kid. Not as shit as he makes it out to be, sure, but it’s been fucked up. And what I did to Tony was pretty shitty too. I’m still making it up to him. My slate isn’t clean in the way of Stark either,” James attempts to assuage. It’s mostly because he thinks it will make Harley better adjusted, learning to forgive people and understand other perspectives, even if James still has trouble with it. 

“I appreciate the effort, but unfortunately a Dad Speech, trademark, patent pending, isn’t going to make me dislike the good Captain any less!” Harley announces, false cheer injected into his voice, which is very Tony. “It’s just my onion,” the boy defends, and James tilts his head, his eyebrows coming together. 

“Your… what?” he asks. Harley laughs. 

“Like my opinion, but you’re either gonna love it, or you’re gonna hate it! My onion,” Harley explains, and James is no less confused, but he grins anyway and hops off of the counter after extracting himself from Harley. 

“Come see what I did to your room,” he says, leading the boy like a mother duck as he walks down the hallway. He snags Harley’s suitcase off of the couch on the way through, hauling it in his metal hand. Littlefoot brushes against James’s legs, giving her little metallic purrs, and then against Harley’s, who coos down at her. James opens the door and sets down the suitcase, stepping out of Harley’s way. The kid grins at him and then jumps into the bed face down, starfishing outward as he’s wont to do. 

“You moved it against the wall and got pillows for me?” Harley clarifies, and James nods. 

“Even got them in Spider-man colors for your crush aesthetic,” James replies, and he laughs as Harley blushes dark. He doesn’t react with violence or volume as Peter does, but it’s still quite funny to watch. Harley stands and sets his forehead against James’s chest, headbutting him lightly in a way that reminds James of the behavior of real cats. He had gone on a kick after getting Littlefoot, researching the social behaviors and needs of organic cats to absorb all the knowledge he could. Headbutts, in house cats at the very least, communicate a sense of safety and possession. James supposes that’s not quite incorrect; he is thoroughly possessed by Tony and both of their kids, after all. 

“Make me food. I don’t care what,” Harley says before pushing James backwards and out of his room, closing his door. “I’m changing clothes for food time!” Harley announces before James can get worried, so he just walks off. 

He’s been meaning to try out the sushi mats and nori that he ordered off of Amazon, and he already has sushi rice prepared for such an occasion, so James decides that he’s going for more of a surprise than anything else. He pulls out one of the bricks of cream cheese, an avocado, shredded carrots, a green bell pepper and a cucumber. Most of making sushi is the knifework, and that’s not really something James has ever minded; he even prefers knives to guns these days. Definitely quieter. He makes quick work of all the slicing and dicing, setting it aside as he gets out the mats. He has two, which means he can make two different kinds. He doesn’t remember if Harley likes bell pepper, so he makes one with and one without. If anything, they’ll both eat both. 

He puts down some saran wrap on the mats, lays out the nori, and spreads the rice onto it. He had read on a forum that this is the hardest part, and they’re not wrong. The nori keeps tearing in places and it frustrates him, but he goes a bit slower. Everything is fine. He’s just wrapping the second roll when Harley comes out of his room, looking as if he showered. Just changing, James’s ass. 

“Hey kid, how do you feel about sushi?” James asks, no context before Harley walks into the kitchen. The kid makes a noise of confusion before he sees the counter, and then it’s a humming noise of excitement. 

“I love sushi! Fuck yeah!” he says excitedly, bouncing until he reaches a counter he can jump on top of. He bounces as he sits as well, and he reminds James of a child much younger than he actually is. He’s glad that Harley still holds that slow kind of innocence, even when he was just boiling over with an ancient frustration, Harley is still whole and clean and bouncy and kind. James slices the sushi and puts it on a plate. 

“Let’s eat then.” 


	17. envelope

When Tony arrives, Harley is warm like the setting sun and buzzing like a bee, skittering around the bottom floor and practically bouncing off of the walls. Ever since that first day, the Rogues regard Harley as some sort of animal anyway, staying out of his way and attempting to avoid contact with him. It doesn’t matter what they do because the mouth on that kid is unstoppable. James loves it. He and Friday have been keeping a count of Harley v the Rogues, and the only ones that aren’t at least five points down are Lang and Wilson, and it’s only because they make an effort to keep on the good side of both Harley and James himself. They’re even polite to Tony when he comes through. 

“Harls,” James says quietly when the kid is starting to make  _ him  _ dizzy, and Harley comes and sits next to him automatically. Despite the fact that the kid takes orders from exactly no one, he knows when James is getting overwhelmed, and likes to act accordingly. Rhodes is arriving at the same time as Tony, and James can see that Rogers is getting geared up for whatever conversation he would like that to entail. 

“Time?” Harley asks in a near whisper, and James taps his phone screen. Two minutes until Tony is meant to arrive, and James feels himself begin to get excited as well. Instead of the minutes and scant hours he’s gotten to steal with Tony in the last few months and weeks, Tony will be staying a while. Harley goes back home tomorrow, but for this one day, James will get to have them both. He wants Peter here, but the kid has to work on some sort of project with Ned and MJ that’s due tomorrow. Having met both of Peter’s close friends, James can relax knowing that at least Peter is happy doing what he’s doing. 

_ “Okay?” _ Harley asks in quiet Italian, looking just this shade of concerned, and James flashes him a smile. Sometimes, Harls worries for more than it’s worth. Harley learned Italian from Tony years ago, apparently, and they’re stumbling through teaching it to Peter (mostly curse words first, though Peter blushes when Harley flirts in Italian, so James thinks he might be picking some up on the side as well). James knows Italian for obvious reasons, as well as a dozen or so other miscellaneous languages. Only the Widow seems to perk up enough to know that it’s Italian at all, let alone what they’re saying, so James doesn’t worry about anyone overhearing. The widow is inconsequential. 

_ “I’m fine, bambino. You excited? I know you’re setting something up in the shop. Won’t hurt him, will it?” _ James replies in full Italian as well, warm and rumbling in the way that he’s learned from being what Harley calls a  _ surrogate father figure.  _ James had reminded him of the sleepy occasion of Harley actually calling him Dad and the kid had shoved him, but it was well worth it. 

_ “The old man will be fine. It’s not even that bad. He’s gotten worse from Dum-e,”  _ Harley claims, and James shrugs a shoulder. That’s good enough for him. He knows Harley won’t hurt Tony anyway; he rants about Tony’s heart condition, Tony’s health, Tony’s diet, almost as much as James does. They’re both overprotective and Tony calls them on it with a shitty little grin sometimes, and James loves him, loves him, loves him. Might as well call a spade a spade, after all. That’s just another phrase he’s picked up from Tony. 

_ “Babbo?”  _ Harley startles him out of his head again, this time with a grin that looks just like the one James was imagining on Tony. Harley is the spitting image of his  _ mechanic,  _ though the two of them will argue over which of them is actually the mechanic at all.  _ Babbo  _ is an Italian affection name for one’s father, and Harley usually saves it for joking around with Tony. James is warmed by the inclusion, even after all of this time, and he pulls Harley a little closer into him. He just barely catches the flash of something that looks shortly like sadness in the widow’s eyes, but it doesn’t matter. The widow is inconsequential. 

“I’m fine, Harls,” James replies in English as he tires of translating, and Harley looks as if he’s about to say something in reply as the door opens. 

“Princess!” Harley greets excitedly, not jumping directly onto Tony as James would assume (he has all sorts of odd nicknames for Tony with stories that James loves to hear), but onto  _ Colonel Rhodes.  _ Rhodes rolls his eyes but sweeps the kid up in his arms without much hesitation, instead muttering something that also sounds oddly like Italian. James isn’t paying enough attention to hear, though he could if he tried, because he’s too busy pulling Tony’s person into his arms. 

“Hey, Snowflake,” Tony says quietly, sounding not like excitement but instead like homecoming, and it just makes James want to pull him closer. He wants to pull Tony into him until he slips through the cracks in James’s ribs, until he hides there and never has to come out again. James thinks of their almost kiss and decides that he doesn’t want to kiss Tony in front of all of these people, not when it would be the first time, and not when Tony would be perfectly right to push him away. He leaves his arms around Tony’s waist as he pulls back a bit though, just distancing them enough to look at each other. 

“Hi,” James rasps. He sounds awfully as if he’s about to cry, but there’s nothing he can do to help that. Harley eventually lets go of Rhodes and pushes his way between Tony and James, not to push James away, but to simply stand between them. James wants Peter, but this almost feels enough like California to levy out the weight in his chest, to remove a bit of the sadness he stores there for safekeeping. 

“Alright, clear out of the doorway, heathens,” Rhodes hens them, corralling them into the living room rather than just standing in the foyer. James would have stood there for the rest of his life if the world had let him, so he supposes it’s fair of Rhodes to try to speed that along. Harley crashes onto a couch and pulls both Tony and James down with him, Tony on one side and James on the other. James sends a fond-parent kinda look to Tony, who sends one right back, and the rest of the Rogues and others file into the room as well. Steve clears his throat, about to speak, but Tony holds up a hand. 

“Before we get into anything, I need to eat. Any leftovers or anything, Jamie?” Tony asks, looking at him over Harley’s curls. Harley perks up. 

“He’s supposed to teach me Eggs Benedict before I leave. Wanna try making that?” the kid suggests, and James grins. He had promised, even if it  _ was  _ after he found Harley trying to take apart the door frame of his room for shits and giggles and James would have promised  _ anything  _ to make him stop. At the time, Harley had just tinkered with Littlefoot for a while instead. 

“Eggs Benedict? That sounds like fun,” Tony says before standing up, shrugging out his tension. They’re about halfway out of the room before Rogers stands in front of them, holding up his hands in surrender before James can even clench his fists. 

“I - uh - I’m sure we have the stuff to make it down here, if you don’t want to go upstairs yet,” Rogers offers, rushed and uncomfortable, hand on the back of his neck, and James looks at Tony. There’s a brief communication -  _ Is this okay with you? - Only if it’s okay with you -  _ before he looks to Harley. 

“Yves,” he requests, jutting his chin in the general direction of the kitchen upstairs. It takes Harley a second (genius, genius, genius), but then the kid nods and runs off to the elevator. Rogers frowns. 

“He’s going to get the vegetarian Canadian bacon, don’t get your all-American panties in a twist,” Tony says, rolling his eyes and grabbing at James’s metal arm to drag him to the downstairs kitchen. “Yves is a brand name of vegetarian and vegan shit,” Tony explains to the crowd behind them reluctantly, awkwardly. James sets himself between Tony and everyone else, only allowing Rhodes to slip past. 

“Eggs. Lemon. English muffins,” James lists quietly, pulling up the recipe on his phone instead of attempting to remember everything else off of the top of his head. Tony nods and moves to grabbing those things automatically, his brows wrinkling as he has to dig around more than usual; he’s grown accustomed to James’s usually level of hyper organization, and anything else just seems like a mess. He doesn’t complain aloud, but James can see it in his face. Spitefully, he supposes that the Rogues likely cannot, as only Rhodes seems to share in the commiseration of fond pleasure at the wrinkled nose expression taking over Tony’s face. Tony smoothes it out as he turns. 

“Eggs, lemon, muffins. What else, Red October? That can’t be it,” Tony sasses, and James turns his phone screen so that Tony can see. 

“Is white pepper really necessary?” the engineer asks, his brow creasing again. When James nods, Tony just rolls his eyes. “I’ll text Harley to bring it. And the worcestershire sauce. And the cat. I miss her.” 

“You have a cat?” Rogers breaks into the conversation, looking equal parts frustrated and confused. Tony tilts his head like Rogers is being purposefully daft, and James watches as Rhodes joins him in holding back laughter. 

“No,” Tony says, nice and slow, “James has a cat.” Tony likely doesn’t even realise how he sounds, so used to other people who have the correct amount of background information on the subject he was talking about (or, like James, enough bolstering curiosity) that it doesn’t even occur to him that someone might not. James would try to remind him of the dangers of assuming that everyone is a well studied, well knowledged genius, but it’s more fun to watch this man make other people flounder. 

“The Winter Soldier has a cat,” Barton says flatly, clearly unimpressed. Rogers is immediately on the defensive, which is frustrating. 

“He is not-” Rogers starts, but Tony shrugs. 

“I mean, she’s kinda also Harley and Pete’s, but yeah. Harls and Pete gave her to James for Christmas. Well, Hanukkah? Christmas and Hanukkah. The holidays,” Tony explains, still looking over James’s phone and not watching the expressions of the Rogues. As much as James knows it’s a coping mechanism, it’s also a big ass power move, and one that James is proud of. He loves and he loves and he loves. 

“How can I be of use?” Rhodes directs at James, and James loosens enough to give him a brief, genuine smile. He hasn’t spared one for any of the Rogues since coming to live with Tony, and he knows that Rogers catches that. 

“It’s usually a recipe I make alone, so having two more sets of hands is already a bit of a stretch. If you like, you can sit on the counter like Harley usually does and make snarky remarks every time someone fucks up,” James offers, and Rhodes outright grins, shitty and just like Tony, and James remembers that the two of them are lifelong friends. Rhodes uses the strength of his arms to lift himself onto one of the corners of the counter, holding out his legs to Tony. Tony doesn’t even seem to focus at all as he automatically takes the bracers off, careful and yet careless as he does the straps and everything without looking. James is struck with exactly how much Tony knows, how much Tony cares about everything he knows, and he feels a sense of wonder at just the existence of Tony Stark. 

Based on the expression Rhodes is making, some of the wonder and delight going through James’s head is showing on his face, and there’s a shovel talk to be expected later. James would be worried if there wasn’t one. 

“You guys can sit down at the breakfast bar. There’s no reason to just stand there,” Tony comments to the Rogues, who scramble to sit. Well, Rogers scrambles, Wilson and Lang sit comfortably, Barton looks like sitting is a trouble in itself, the Widow delicately takes out a chair, and the Witch moves her chair with bright red light, making James grit his teeth. Friday buzzes over her intercom. 

“Does Doctor Strange need to be contacted?” she offers, a mystery to the Rogues, but Tony shakes his head. 

“We’re good, princess. No harm,” he says, even as he looks shaken, looks like he’s about to shake right out of his skin. 

“Yes, he does,” Harley argues as he comes back into the room, throwing the package of Yves at James’s chest. The more delicate items and Littlefoot are all still held against his own chest. “What’s the point of having Stephen on speed dial if we never fuckin’ call him? There was no threat. That’s an infraction. Call him or I will, Fri,” Harley requests, the angry growl in his throat tempering down to something more polite as he addresses the AI that he regularly calls his  _ Stark-sister.  _ Friday makes a humming noise that is all too human and then doesn’t speak for a moment in which all in the room are silent. 

“The Doctor is on his way. He advises separating from the cause of your problem by going upstairs or downstairs. I will lock up after you,” Friday assures, and Tony winces. He doesn’t want to separate from the Rogues so suddenly, and it shows all over his face. James puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s just an advisement. We can stay down here if you want,” James offers. Tony looks at Rhodes, then back at James, and nods. 

“Harley, you can go if you want, bud. We’re staying.” 

“Me too.” 


	18. pouring

Doctor Stephen Strange sweeps into the compound like he was born and raised there, and he brings along a few friends as well. 

“We asked the good Doctor if we could catch a ride - ‘s been a while, you know?” a woman in dark clothes says as she looks at Tony, a predator’s grin flashing as she raises her eyebrows. She grabs one of the bottles of wine off of the shelf and looks at it with a bit of a grimace before just pulling out the cork, not concerned with finding a corkscrew at all. James finds himself put between liking her based off of her obvious regard for Tony, or disliking her because of her obvious disregard for anyone and anything else. He usually goes with ‘nice to Tony’ as a qualifier anyway. 

“Jessica, share with Rhodey if you’re gonna drink my wine,” Tony requests, rolling his eyes fondly as the woman apparently known as Jessica jumps onto the counter. She chugs about a cup of it before passing it to Rhodes, who apparently day drinks with the best of them. Thinking his way through the public record of Tony’s friends, James realises that this woman must be Jessica Jones, and that ripping out a wine cork is not the most egregious show of her strength. A large, dark man follows after her with a blonde man following at his heels, and those must be Luke Cage and Daniel Rand. A blind man with deceptive strength stays behind, Matt Murdock in the flesh. While their alternate identities are meant to be a secret, James can easily guess at who they are on the field. 

“Who are all of these people?” the Witch asks, looking between all of them with her cagey little expression. Harley, completely at ease with all of these powered people and all of the things that they can do, leans against Matt Murdock as if he is just another part of the wall. Murdock allows it with a slight smile, which sneaks his way into James’s good graces with an ease uncommon.

“I am Doctor Stephen Strange. I am also known as the Sorcerer Supreme, the authoritative power on magic in this hemisphere. I also have the authority over the magical clause of your Accords contract, which you have willingly signed,” Doctor Strange explains, to which the Witch becomes even more apprehensive. Rogers looks ready to protest, but stops when Jessica leans over the counter to put a hand on his chest. James approves. The way that she looks at him stops him cold. James  _ really  _ approves. 

“Miss, you might want to remove your hand from my person,” Rogers says, his voice seeping with both formality and rage. Jessica gives him a grin that shows all of her teeth, some of which are still red with cracks from catching punches before she was indestructible, and Rogers is visibly startled by her confidence. 

“I could put you through that wall,  _ Captain,”  _ she says, making the title into a curse word, “So I would mind my tone, if I was you. I would not be alone in protecting myself from you. Not like Tony was.” She grits her teeth and shoves him backwards a couple of steps, staying perfectly on the counter as Rogers has to catch himself against the wall. Cage gives her a look like a storm is coming, but it flattens out into an expression of resignation pretty quickly. There’s a story there that James does not know, but he doesn’t think he wants to. 

Not with Rand standing just behind Cage’s shoulder, looking both out of place and like he’s exactly where he needs to be. 

“Anyway, as it were, your punishment is in my jurisdiction. Your Accords agreement agreed upon not using your powers outside of private quarters and battle. You are currently in a public space. Do you need a lesson on control?” Strange offers, his tone cut in a way that communicates an indication that  _ yes  _ is the correct answer. The Witch grits her teeth and shakes her head, blowing air out through her teeth. “Two more infractions and I  _ will  _ take it away, Miss Maximoff. Do you need a lesson on control?” he asks again. Strange cuts a figure of calm authority, of anger and of protection. 

“What do you mean, you’ll take it away? You can’t do that,” Barton says, looking like an petulant impression of the protective father he wants to be for Wanda, despite the fact that she’s twenty-six years old. Strange turns to look at him, sizing him up obviously and equally so obviously finding him lacking. 

“Actually, Agent Barton, I can. If any of you had read your Accords contracts, you would know that. Unfortunately for those who disagree with what they did not bother to understand, it’s still legally binding. The infractions mentioned, to clarify, are those infractions that do not give out any psychological or physical harm. If harm is dealt, that creates a more serious problem. Upon an infraction of that nature, I will either be forcibly taking Miss Maximoff for training, or taking her powers entirely, depending on the severity of the infraction,” Strange explains, to which James nods automatically. It makes sense. 

“Why can’t she fucking use her powers for shit that doesn’t hurt anyone? That’s bullshit,” Barton mouths off, scowling at Strange. Strange lets out a sigh. 

“According to the contract you signed, it’s based upon previous psychological trauma that she inflicted upon one or more of the original six Avengers. Whether or not that is something that the previously traumatized individuals are willing to share with you is not the concern of the Accords. Miss Maximoff,” Strange says, addressing the Witch, “Do you wish to receive lessons on control now or later?” 

Maximoff contemplates him for a second, looking between the Doctor and Barton, before she sighs. She looks both like a child and as if she’s been on the Earth for a thousand years, both insecure and as if she’s already made a stone decision. 

“You are truly a master?” she asks, sounding small. James still does not like her, but she sounds like a child. Sounds like Harley, sometimes. She chose HYDRA, chose to be modified and chose to undergo whatever it took on some crooked revenge plot against a man who only ever wanted the future, and James does not like her. But, she sounds like Harley when he does not know how he’s messed up socially, when he needs James to explain what intricacies of feelings he does not quite grasp. 

“Wanda, you can’t seriously be considering this!” Barton barks out, looking at Maximoff as if she’s lost her damn mind. As if that hadn’t happened a long time ago. Barton is exactly the kind of man that James has decided that he does not like: those who will not claim responsibility and, beyond that, will not allow their friends to claim responsibility for what they have done either. It must be something he learned from Rogers, who is directly following Barton onto the path of vitriolic defense. 

“He’s a master. He’s  _ the  _ master. And, for what it’s worth, I think you should. You should get… better teachers, when you can. Make up for what you’ve done, one day,” Harley breaks into the conversation like the breaking of the tide, silencing everyone it impacts. Murdock wraps a protective arm around Harley’s shoulder as Barton and Rogers turn to look at the boy, putting off quite an energy that he’s willing to fight, should it come to it. Maximoff looks at Harley for a hard moment in which James holds himself back from throwing hands simply for looking at his kid too long, and then she nods. 

“I would like lessons,” she says to Strange, who nods at her. 

“I will teach you control, and anything else I can as well. I will be dampening some of your powers as I expand them, as to the letter of the Accords. You will be staying with myself and my fellow attendants in the Sanctum for a time. Is this acceptable to you?” he asks, focusing down at Maximoff instead of allowing any of his concentration for the protests that come up from Rogers and Barton. Lang and Wilson are still eerily silent, as if waiting for things to return to a familiar pattern. Maximoff nods, stepping closer to Strange and following him toward the exit as he turns. 

“Find your own way back,” Strange comments to the Defenders, and then he and Maximoff are gone. 

“What the fuck just happened?” Rogers growls out, turning to Tony in his anger. James and Jessica Jones, who jumps off the counter just to do it, close ranks around Tony in the man’s defense. 

“What’d I say about your fucking tone, Captain?” Jessica grinds out, both of her fists up in front of her face. James cracks the knuckles of his flesh hand and makes the  _ Stark  _ signature in the outside of his metal upper arm rather obvious. His arm belongs to Stark, and so do all of the properties that make him a weapon, even if that’s never what Tony wants him for. James belongs to Tony so thoroughly that he would never be able to separate out which parts are weapon and which parts are human. 

“Everyone, calm down,” Rand says. He has the kind of voice made to put people at ease, careful yet easy in his tone. Jessica and James both stand a little to the side, allowing Tony to be seen between their broad shoulders. 

“I do not need a knight - or knights - in leather. I can handle shit myself. I don’t need protection,” Tony admonishes the both of them. 

“Not like anyone else is doing it,” they both say, almost in exact unison, and Jessica gives him a grin that could cut glass. 

“Tony doesn’t need protecting. It’s not like I’m gonna do anything,” Rogers says, defensive. Jessica turns her diamond smile in his direction, cutting into pieces that just look even sharper. 

“What am I supposed to do? Wait for you to put your shield through his chest? Oh wait,” she trails off. She looks like a mother dragon protecting her hoard of eggs, looks like she would rip the heart out of Rogers’s chest if given half the chance, looks exactly like someone James can respect. 

“You don’t know what happened in that bunker,” Rogers bites out, angry and looking between James and Jessica. “Tony wanted to kill Bucky. He almost did! Even if he replaced the arm, he still ripped it off first!” Rogers says, and before Harley can aggressively correct Rogers, Jessica is speaking again. 

“Your name is James, right?” she directs at James, who nods. “Then, you’ll call him James, Rogers. And I  _ do  _ know what went on in that bunker, actually. Friday showed me the video feed from the suit when I asked, and and if Tony had wanted either of you dead down there, you wouldn’t be a pain in my ass as we speak. Not you, James, you’re fine. I don’t like you, but you’re fine. You, on the other hand, Rogers, are getting on my very last fucking nerve. Calling people by the wrong name, raising your voice at Tony, I just… I don’t like you very much, and it’s getting hard for me not to show it.” 

“Jess, calm your shit. Anyway. Did none of you read what you signed?” Tony asks, looking at all of the Rogues like he’s vaguely disappointed. Wilson raises his hand slowly, grabbing Lang’s arm and wrenching it up as well. 

“We read ours. Well, I read both and discussed it with Scott. We thought everyone else read theirs too,” Wilson explains, and Lang nods, not looking directly at the Captain or Barton, who both look pretty steamed. Tony nods at the two of them. 

“Scott, by the way, have you spoken to Cassie since you got back? I’ve talked to her mom, but not Cass, not lately,” Tony comments, looking past Rogers to make eye contact with    
Lang, who smiles. 

“I have! She’s doing good, passing all of her classes. She wants to come up at the end of the month, if that’s okay. I don’t know what the rules are around here,” Lang replies, shrugging. Barton scowls. 

“You don’t have to ask him permission for shit, Scott. He’s a mechanic, not a warden,” Barton spits, and both Harley and Jessica look to be a second from violence. 

“I’m gonna throw him through a wall,” Jessica says, looking at Tony, who shakes his head. 

“Please do,” says Harley, who is pat on the head by Murdock. Murdock disentangled himself from his sentry stand beside James’s kid, and dusts off his coat. The Widow watches him move but makes no motions to stop him, and that is almost enough to make James believe she could be worth redemption. Anyone with half of a tactical mind knows where this is going. There’s silence in Murdock’s walk over to Barton, careful consideration, and then Barton is on the floor, blood on Murdock’s knuckles. 

“Can we go to the penthouse now?” 


	19. wings

Harley is back in Tennessee until the summer, but the Defenders are staying for a while. Jessica kicks up dirty black combat boots on every surface. Matt is still in suits every single day, raised eyebrows sharper than a knife whenever he looks at anyone doing anything stupid. Luke and Danny are mostly quiet, staying away from the action, but there’s a quiet strength to the both of them. 

James prides himself on knowing all of their food preferences and still outranking them when it comes to lab entrances. 

They sit on the Rogues’ floor because Jessica demands it, says that Tony and James shouldn’t feel like intruders in a building they’re forced to live in, and Tony doesn’t have enough fight left in him anyway. Barton is in an unpleasantly pleasant mood this morning, bolstered by a recent phone call with Strange that he keeps telling Rogers about despite the fact that James is sure that Strange also contacted Rogers. There was some sort of break through with the Witch, something that James can’t even be bothered to remember, given that it didn’t seem to bother Tony at all. What  _ does  _ bother James is when Barton, in his unpleasantly pleasant mood, walks past James and cards fingers through his hair, pulling a little, touching James without his permission as if they are anything close to friends. 

“You need a haircut, soldat,” Barton comments, and it’s all James can do not to reach up and break all of the bones in Barton’s hands. He does not like to be touched, cannot be touched without his direct permission, and no one has tried to attempt to change that before; he doesn’t know how to deal with someone trying to change that. He feels like he’s buzzing with all of the anxiety and tension that suddenly finds its way into his bones, and James wants to do harm. He wants to have control, and he wants to have someone else hurt for it like he has hurt so many times. He wants to break all of the bones in Barton’s hands. He wants to break his wrists, crack open his shoulders like he’s deboning a cow, wants to break and break and break. James doesn’t even realise that he’s breathing harder, that his eyes are sharp, that he looks more like the soldier than he has in months. 

When James reaches up, Tony catches his hand, slipping his fingers between metal ones and swinging his weight into James’s lap. The displacement of matter is enough to stop James in his tracks, catching Tony and sitting backward in his seat rather than trying to get up out of it. Despite the fact that James could easily walk around while carrying Tony (he’s still worryingly small, though the engineer insists that it’s just how he’s built), he immediately feels settled by it. Tony pulls James’s face against his neck and James marvels at the trust, and is soothed by Tony’s whispering Italian and soft hands. He strokes his fingers through James’s hair and it almost feels like he’s getting rid of Barton’s hands, like the exposure to Tony will get rid of anything he doesn’t want. 

There’s a commotion on the other side of the room; Rogers is yelling, and there’s an impact on leather that means that Jessica is likely hitting someone or getting hit, and Danny’s calm voice is there as well. Matt and Luke are backing Jessica’s plays, probably, ready to be extra hands because it’s never muscle that Jessica Jones needs more of. Wilson and Lang, outside of James’s periphery, are slowly backing out of the room; this is not their fight, and they won’t be broken up about not helping the Hawk out of a grave he dug for himself. They won’t be lying in it with him. 

James doesn’t pay attention to any of it, too caught up in the almost-panic of what could have been his first Winter Soldier situation since moving in with Tony, whose lips are moving almost against James’s ear. It’s still Italian, still low and slow and likely only able to be heard by the enhanced individuals in the room, and something possessive in James is glad that Rogers can hear all of the nice things that Tony says to him to keep him calm. Something possessive in James is glad that Rogers can hear exactly how unneeded he is. James has a hand on the outside of Tony’s thigh to keep him settled, and the little taste of actual, visible possession is enough to keep James going for a while. 

Tony is not something to possess, but James would sure fucking love to be his, even if it couldn’t be reciprocated. 

He’s been thinking about that a lot lately. He’s been thinking about belonging to the United States military, belonging to the Red Room, belonging to HYDRA, belonging to Steve Rogers. He didn’t choose any of that - got drafted in the 40s, kidnapped by the Red Room, sold to HYDRA, and told that he was Bucky Barnes by Steve Rogers even when he barely remembered a thing. He had not wanted to be Bucky, couldn’t be him, and he doesn’t want that now. Tony Stark has never asked James for anything he didn’t readily want to give. Tony Stark is the choice that James wants to make, wants to keep making for the rest of his life, even if it’s never as much as he wants. 

_ “Tesoro,”  _ Tony calls him, and James pulls Tony just a shade closer. It’s just a way to calm him down, but for a moment, James can pretend that Tony means it. He can pretend that this one little thing that he wants wants him back in all of the same ways, instead of an almost-kiss that was never continued, an air of affection that James shares with the boys that Tony views as sons, and James wants to pretend, if even for a moment, that Tony thinks of him as someone to love, someone to live a life with. Even with the calamity of violence and reason happening across the room, James feels at peace so long as Tony is so close. 

“You never fucking touch him again, you hear me? Is that fucking clear, Barton? Do you fucking understand?” Jessica asks, shaking Barton by the lapels of his jacket, which he always wears inside like a douche. There’s blood coming from a cut above his eyebrow, and while James appreciates the violence, Tony seems a bit unsettled by it. James squeezes Tony’s fingers just a little bit, reassurance without pain, and moves to stop the action. 

“Jess. It’s okay. We’re good,” he says shortly, making a quick gesture with a tip of his forehead in Tony’s direction, to which Jessica nods. She drops Barton like a bag of potatoes and lets Rogers and Romanoff clean up her mess, completely uncaring as she crosses the room to sit by James’s side, a delicate layer of space between them as to keep them from touching. Luke and Danny follow behind her, though they stand beside the loveseat instead of attempting to find a seat. Matt stands sentry, his usual game, his feet shoulder width apart and looking everyday like a soldier on guard. 

“Fucking freak has guard dogs,” Barton spits, spraying blood onto the beige carpet that Tony will undoubtedly feel obligated to clean up later. Matt clenches his fists and Barton scrambles out of the floor, walking crookedly to his bedroom quickly. Obviously, he remembers exactly what it’s like to be laid out by the Daredevil. 

“I’m sorry for him. He was good with me, when I came back. I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Romanoff says, slow and stilted, and James wonders exactly how bad it is for her. Then, he remembers that he doesn’t exactly care. The Widow scratches at old memories named  _ Yasha,  _ and he doesn’t want them back in the same way that he doesn’t want Bucky’s memories back. He wants to be someone new, someone who is his own, this time. And, maybe someone who belongs in the same space as Tony Stark, even if belonging to him isn’t exactly an option. Jessica bares her teeth at the Rogues still in the room. 

“Jess,” James says quietly, dipping his head in her direction. He’s distracted from looking at her, however, for looking at Tony; the man is completely relaxed in his lap, and if James didn’t know any better, he’d think the other man was asleep. James stands while still holding Tony, who is obviously awake, but doesn’t make any impression to anyone not in his immediate vicinity that that is the case. James looks to address the Defenders rather than the Rogues as he speaks. 

“I’m taking him down to the lab. He’ll be more accustomed to waking up on the couch during the day than his bed,” he claims, nodding at them before making his way to the elevator. Tony’s hand squeezes his bicep, and James smiles. When they get to the lab, he sets Tony down on his feet, but the engineer keeps arms around his shoulders. 

“Walking is so much work. Carry me to the couch?” he requests, looking for all the world like a pouty little kid, and James smiles some more as he does as asked. He sets Tony down and sits down beside him, not expecting the way that Tony turns to him and sits criss-cross, all of his attention on James. 

“That was gross. I don’t like anybody calling you  _ soldat,”  _ Tony says, his expression one of nose-wrinkled disgust. James grins at how adorable this grown-ass man can be, with how childish and cutesy he can get. Sometimes, James considers taking up drawing just to capture how much he loves to look at Tony, but there are too many risks. Being occupied if Tony is ever in danger, Tony finding the drawings and seeing them for exactly what they are, being more like Steve Rogers, distracting himself from experiencing new things in the future, there are many risks. He doesn’t know how to categorize all of them, so instead he tunes back into Tony, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Didn’t bother me as much as the touching,” he admits, scowling. Tony frowns, looking a touch insecure. 

“Did it bother you when I did it? Because I can find another way to calm you down. It just needed to be quick this time. I can develop something, likely. Not anything that will knock you out like a tranq or something, but more like we can go back to therapy and see about developing a destress routine for you so that it won’t be such a risk. In fact, we might want to do that anyway. Friday -” Tony starts, but James slaps a hand over the genius’s mouth. He makes sure Tony is looking directly at him as he speaks. 

_ “You _ can touch me whenever you want. I trust _ you.  _ You are one of the only people in this world and any other that I can trust,” James says honestly, his voice the most level thing it’s ever been. From an outsider’s perspective, it sounds growly, almost possessive in its hard lilt, but Tony isn’t complaining. Tony’s eyes are wide like he can’t believe the words, like he can’t believe anyone trusts him at all. 

“Oh,” he says. James is glad to have for once made him speechless, but he wishes it wasn’t with something like this. He wants Tony to know exactly what he’s worth, that he’s invaluable and irreplaceable and a thousand golden things that he can’t even begin to know about himself if he looks like that at the very concept of someone  _ trusting him.  _ James would like a free invite to beat the shit out of everyone who made Tony think so low of himself, but he’s pretty sure he’s already killed one of them. 

“I trust you,” James says again, and Tony nods, but his expression still says he can’t believe it. 

James wants to spend his whole life showing him it’s true. 


	20. sunshine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is posted in honor of @crypticgemini, who turns 16 today!

Barton is gone before the week is out. The Defenders are back in New York, Barton is off to wherever the fuck his ranch is, because Laura wants help raising three kids, even if she’s pissed at him. James has spoken to Laura a grand total of three times, all over the phone while waiting for Tony to be done with whatever he was doing so that James could pass the conversation over. She seems too good for Barton. Well. Oxygen seems too good for Barton, but that’s not James’s business. 

The Widow followed after Barton, so the Compound is two Rogues short. James tries to keep to himself but keeps seeing Rogers anyway, so he burrows himself into Tony's personal space and alone time because he doesn't want to have to deal with anything. Everything feels safer around Tony, even if James wants to spend all of his time at Tony's back, protecting him from all that would dare to come close. Rhodes is still here, and he likes to protect Tony as much as James does, which is a valuable ally to have. Pepper Potts is coming to visit soon, but not for another week or two. She terrifies James. 

It's not that she used to have an intimate relationship with Tony. It's that she continues to have a professional and friendly relationship with Tony that scares James, because if someone can walk away from Tony Stark and still love him enough to tell the tale, that person is so much more powerful than James can even imagine. The Rogues? Weak in their not-love of Tony Stark, in the affection and need that they liked to pretend looked like love. But Pepper Potts? All she needs from Tony is a signature and the occasional visit, and she loves him still, loves him and doesn't feel the need to be with him all of the time, doesn't feel the need to protect and watch over and try to heal. 

"Alright, Frosty, what's on your mind?" Tony asks, petting his hair softly as he lets James lean into his side on the couch. While sitting up would likely be more comfortable, instead James is laying nearly all of the way down, but instead of setting his head on the couch or even on Tony's thigh, he has his face pressed against Tony's side, his arms wrapped around Tony's torso. It's a kind of closeness that James is still making himself familiar with, and he likes it more than he can say. He considers the questions for a moment before going with the truth. 

"You. Pepper. What's she like?" he asks, directing Tony away from the fact that he occupies James's mind so surely that it must show on his face, if Tony felt the need to ask. He doesn't care if Tony knows that James cares too much, but he would rather avoid accosting Tony with it at every opportunity. Tony allows James to touch him because he likes to be touched, not because he likes to be touched by James. James is okay with that, because if there's anything he always likes to do, it's make Tony Stark enjoy himself. 

"She's great. I think you'll like her. She's mad protective when it comes to keeping me away from the Board, and she always has this knack for knowing exactly how much sleep I've had from the depth of the circles beneath my eyes. I swear she knows everything," Tony explains, and he sounds so damn fond. It's different from how he talks about Rhodes, the honest and open affection of his 'honeybear' or his 'platypus' or whatever Tony feels like talking about Rhodes as from one day to another. In talking about Pepper Potts, Tony clouds his voice over like she's something precious, and James wonders if this is what heartbreak sounds like. He wonders how much Tony still loves her. He's much too afraid to ask. 

James's tipsy turvy mental state cannot seem to decide if today is a good day or not; he's comfortable enough to cling to Tony but on edge enough to want to, he feels safe enough to leave his room but not enough to leave the lab. He wants to be by Tony's side but he never, ever wants to explain why. He never ever wants to have the discussion with Tony that explains it at all. Tony taps on his shoulder and James extracts himself a little, looking up at the engineer with wide eyes. 

"Hey, Snowflake. I asked you a question, buddy," Tony says, raising his eyebrows at James and giving him a look of teasing and yet forgiving concern. Some days, it feels like Tony knows much more about James than James knows about himself. 

"Sorry. Can you repeat it?" James requests, pressing his face back into Tony's side with reckless abandon. Tony huffs out a laugh and returns to petting James's hair, slow and comforting. 

"Why do you ask? You getting spooked? You don't have to meet her if you don't want," Tony offers, though James knows he's false in it. He's been excited about James meeting more and more of his friends, and Pepper is one of the ones he's most excited about. James won't be the one to take that away. 

Instead of answering right away, James puts his forehead against Tony a little harder, feeling quite like a house cat and not sure whether he should dislike himself for how he chooses to show affection. 

"I'm not excited, I'll give you that. But, I do want to meet her. I'm just nervous. This is. Not the most worrisome thing for me to be fixating on," James attempts to explain. He feels stupid for worrying about meeting Pepper, which just makes him worry more because he's scared of giving an impression of fear (some part of him, some part that he and Tony have both done the work to push into the very recesses of James's mind, worries that if he shows fear, he will be given some sort of punishment) or an impression that he doesn't like Pepper at all. 

"Hey, you can fixate on whatever you want, Jamie. No shame in being scared of Pepper. She's the most Virgo Aquarius I've ever met, and even if that doesn't mean anything to you, it means a lot to me," Tony rambles, still carding fingers through James's hair in a way that the soldier attempts to mentally construe as not soothing, but he can't even fool himself these days. He feels even more like a house cat and that troubles him even more. 

"Organised, efficient, effective," James lists some of the Virgo traits he's familiar with, though he doesn't know exactly where they come from. Perhaps a target was interested in astrology, or maybe a handler, or maybe it was just something that the Winter Soldier had picked up along the way. Tony nods, and though James can't see it, it's almost like he can feel the approval. 

"Exactly. Now, speaking of efficient, I should probably invent something at some point today. You think we can get up?" Tony requests, his fingers still not stilling in James's hair, and James forces down his feeling of loss. Tony does not deserve to have to deal with the way that James wants him to be close all of the time, the way that he loves to feel the warmth radiate off of golden skin, the way that James loves to be touched and shown affection and all sorts of things that Tony does naturally, not because of any particular want to be with James at all. He's seen Tony brush kisses across Peter, Harley, Rhodes, Jessica's faces enough to know that James is not the only one who earns affection, nor is he one of the ones who has earned the most. 

"We may rise," James allows, copying one of the voices of the judges on Law and Order: SVU that Tony has gotten him into. He rolls backwards out of Tony's lap until he's settled onto his own heels, fighting down the head rush that not even the serum is willing to push down for him. Tony is smiling at him in a way that makes James's throat burn, and James has to look away before he gets too caught up in it. It's a lot like the way that Tony looks at the boys when they're not looking, but with a kind of heat that James does not know what to call. He doesn't know what to do in this situation, and he cannot bear to take more than Tony is offering. 

"Alright, Snowflake," Tony says as he stands, "Wanna help me out with some stuff? We can light things on fire." Tony sing songs the last bit, shimmying his shoulders as if all of the excitement about fire will make it an offer that James cannot refuse. As if he was going to refuse something Tony wanted or needed in the first place; it's laughable, and James allows himself to smile, huffing out a bit of laughter through his nose as he climbs off of the couch. He resists the urge to immediately walk back into Tony's space and stick his nose in the juncture between Tony's neck and shoulder, pushes down the urge to hide himself there. Some days he feels like he could disappear in Tony Stark and never want to come out. 

They work in the lab for a couple of hours, enough for the both of them to lose time in laughter and in the everlasting mess that is building and taking things back apart, realising the better and worse ways to build something and deciding between the two. Occasionally, Tony will build something badly just to laugh as he watches it explode, and James can't bear to make him stop, so it's just something they do. It's not like they don't have an explosion containment space in the lab, and if it makes Tony happy... James so loves to make Tony happy, doesn't he?  

James keeps his distance like he's a good man, doesn't put his hands on Tony's hips when he's standing behind him, doesn't bury his nose in Tony's throat when they're across from each other, doesn't even sweep Tony up in his arms as they make something new explode in pretty colors, Tony cheering and looking for all the world like an excitable child. James pushes down the parts of himself that want to protect Tony from the world and only allows the pieces that want to protect Tony from James himself to leak to the surface, careful and clean, because Tony only deserves the parts of James that are his friend, not those that want to be something else. 

"Sarg, if you don't mind," Friday interrupts eventually, and James looks up at the ceiling to give her his full attention. "Neither you nor boss have eaten in about six and a half hours, Sarg," Friday clarifies, sounding as if she would be raising her eyebrows in a quite disapproving manner if she had any. James scrubs a hand across the back of his neck and bites his lip, looking between one of Friday's cameras and Tony's face. He feels terribly as if he's committed an egregious error, but Tony gives him a soft smile, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

"Come on, Soldier boy. How's about I take you out to dinner? You cook for me all the time, I could treat you for once," Tony offers, and James nearly glares as his traitorous heart skips a beat within his chest. It sounds like Tony is asking him on a date, but James swears he knows better. 

Tony doesn't ask him on dates. Tony doesn't want to ask James on dates; Tony doesn't want to date James, no matter how badly James wishes things were different. One almost-kiss does not make a relationship, even if it does make one unrequited crush all that much worse. 

"That's probably a good idea," James says instead of anything that's running through his mind, because anything that his heart wants him to say is ultimate squashed out by the vicious machine that is his mind. Tony grins a little wider and his hand moves to give James a solid pat, nearly enough to move James at all. 

"Alright, go change, Snowflake! Wear somethin' nice!" Tony says, and then he's off. James ignores his traitorous heart that tells him that that sounds even more as if they're going on a date; 'wear something nice' implies that they're going somewhere nice, and the fact that Tony is a very rich man has never stopped them from going to a diner before, but. Maybe this is just a friendly thing. Maybe Tony is re-acclimating himself to expensive dining for when Pepper comes to visit. That makes a lot more sense than the alternative. There's no way that Tony is asking him on a date. 

That doesn't stop James from putting on cologne anyway. He hates himself as he sprays it on, dislikes himself as he fixes his hair, but by the time he’s out of his bedroom door, he almost likes himself again. Tony has that kind of effect on him, he thinks. 


	21. forever

It wasn’t a date. But that’s okay. James still has this. 

“Hey, hey! Quiet! Let the man speak!” Tony yells above the noise, but it doesn’t stop the chatter at all. James doesn’t know how a video call with Harley turned into a three way call with Peter turned into a four way call with Princess Shuri, but it's amusing to see Tony's attempts to wrangle the three younger geniuses into some kind of order. He's attempting to quiet them now for James himself, even if James doesn't remember exactly what he was going to say, and it's rather cute to watch him try. Shuri holds up a hand and both of the boys quiet, making the princess shoot Tony a superior look before she's obviously aiming her look at James, waiting for him to speak. 

"I just want to know when everyone is coming home," James voices quietly, shooting a nervous glance at all of them. Despite the fact that he was the one who wanted to speak in the first place, he still feels awfully put on the spot. It's easier to pay attention to Tony nursing his falsely wounded ego at Shuri's obvious superiority at teenage boy wrangling than it is to look at either Harley or Peter or even Shuri as they think about what he said. 

"Aw, Daddio, I knew ya missed me," Harley says after a moment of silence, blowing a big wet kiss at the camera. James loses his tension and rolls his eyes, miming catching the kiss and throwing it into the nearest trash can, to Harley's immediate dramatic chest grabbing and agog expression. Peter, ever sympathetic to Harley's plights, looks like he's near to tears from laughing so hard, and even Shuri, who likes to pretend to have some pretense of composure in front of anyone but her older brother, looks like she's about to break into hysterics. 

"Get fucking _ cooked,  _ white boy!" Shuri crows after her requisite moment of being stronger in the face of amusement than Peter, bending at the waist and literally slapping her knee as she uses her other hand to wipe false tears from her eyes. Even Tony lets go of his false pride to wheeze, putting his hand on James's shoulder to keep himself upright. James ignores the warmth that spreads through him at the touch, but he knows that all three of the kids see the look on his face, because all three of them are prodigies, and he's never been that fantastic at shoving love down his own throat. 

"I hate this fucking family," Harley remarks lowly, which sets all of them into another set of giggles, save for James and Shuri, who make eye contact through the camera. James silently begs the princess not to say anything, as she's so famous (like Tony) for pointing out all of the elephants in the room, stomping over to them and poking them directly in the face. James does not want to force Tony into acknowledging this little crush, especially if the acknowledgement is agitated into existence by three teenagers who don't hang out with enough people their own age. He cringes as Shuri begins to smile again, though he knows not what is coming. 

"Spider Boy," Shuri says, her voice as commanding as it always is, and Peter snaps to attention. "Didn't you have something you wanted to ask Tony and James? Something about an enclosure white people have with animals in it?" Shuri asks, head tilted like she's actually confused, and James knows she never is. Not that she ever admits to be, that is. Something tells James that Shuri would rather bite off her own right hand than admit she doesn't know what's going on, because she can figure it out her damn self without having someone over her shoulder providing her with the information, and she'll only be that much better for it. Tony would say something about 'reinventing the wheel,' but James thinks it's a matter of pride for the princess. 

"Oh yeah!" Peter says, brightening right up, and James loves this kid, "I wanted to see if you guys wanted to come to the zoo with me! Harley is coming to the city for the first time, and MJ says that everyone has to see the Bronx Zoo at least twice in their life because the first time feels like a trip, but she really thinks it's essential to a New York education." Peter is rambling, quick and bright, and James almost loses the fact that Harley is visiting Peter. Without supervision of anyone but Aunt May. James raises his eyebrows. 

"Visiting Peter, Harls?" James says, giving the boy a sharp look, and Harley ducks his head. Shuri cackles and Peter looks confused, so everything is almost back to par for the course, until Tony speaks up again. James didn't notice because he was looking at Harley, but Tony was looking at him with the most fond expression Shuri had ever seen beforehand. 

"So, the zoo? I'm in. I'll get James to come, trust me," Tony says, giving the kids a dramatic wink that sends the three of them to groaning. From the perspective of the three of them, it must seem rather lascivious, but James knows that Tony doesn't want him like that, no matter how much James wants him in the first place. 

“He means that he’s going to pry me with expensive herbs for cooking, you know that, right?” James clears, and Harley rolls his eyes. 

“Sure, Papa Bear, if that’s what you want to pretend,” Harley jabs, and James knows it’s just a return for the barb about visiting Peter, but it’s still a damn good one. He pretends that he doesn't get a bit of a warm feeling in his chest, an affection that takes him over, every single time Harls calls him Dad or Papa Bear or anything of the sort. He's not Harley's dad, isn't anywhere near healthy enough to be anyone's father figure, but it's sorta nice that Harley sees him that way. Pete has those slips with Tony, with the idea of Tony as a father figure, which certainly fits a bit more than anyone seeing James as anything; Tony is settled, sure, a caregiver. James is theoretically in the wind, could disappear and never come back again. He wouldn't, but he's not someone a person should lean on. 

"Wait, you all just assumed I would not be going to the zoo of my own volition," James realises, slightly offended at the idea that everyone was of the opinion that he was contrarian enough to reject the idea just on the face of it. Shuri flashes him a grin that's all teeth, and he's torn between fondness for her and a small amount of irritation. She feels almost like his little sisters did back in the day, he thinks, and maybe T'Challa would be so kind as to share. Maybe. 

"Well, White Wolf, it isn't much of a stretch to think you would say no to that which would benefit you simply on the principle of wanting to say no to something," Shuri snarks, twirling one of her braids on her finger like she didn't just completely kill him in cold blood. Harley and Peter are both shaking with laughter, unapologetic, while Tony is at least trying to hold it at bay. He is not succeeding by any means, but at least he tries. 

"Get fucking wrecked, Jimbo," Harley chokes out, which sends both Shuri and Peter into a whole new fit of giggles. Tony gives up the ghost of holding back his laughter and James cuffs him on the back of the neck, rolling his eyes. Tony sobers up and stands straight, though he's still smiling with his eyes twinkling. 

"Well, kiddos, as fun as this is," Tony begins to sign off as he always does, "Me and Jamie here have some business to get up to." The way that he waggles his eyebrows is specifically for the kids, making Harley scrub a hand down his face as the others groan. What Harls complains is muffled, but it sounds awfully like  _ ew, Dad, no. _ James definitely isn't slightly jealous at the implication of Harley calling Tony Dad. Harley had Tony first, both before he had James and before Peter had Tony, and Harls has first dibs, definitely. But. Harley usually calls him Dad themed names, and James may or mayn't have gotten quite used to it. Anyway. 

"Goodbye, children. Be safe. Always carry pain medication and a weapon," James sends them off, reaching forward to click off the giant monitor with which he and Tony always host the video calls with the kids. He doesn't know why Tony always chooses to imply that he and James are engaging in sexual or even romantic activities to the kids, being as they've never done anything of the sort. Past the not-kiss the day that T'Challa came to drop a bomb on their laps, James hasn't gotten so much as a peck from Tony, any evidence that the other man is sweet on him. It's obvious that Tony just doesn't want to examine the elephant in the room, and James can allow that. 

He's not so obtuse as to not let a man reject him in peace. 

"So... the zoo," Tony starts, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. "I can tell Pete and Harls that you had a thing if you don't want to go. Pete just gets super excited about this kinda -" James holds up a hand, rolling his eyes. 

"I'll go to the fucking zoo, Tony, I'm not an asshole," he growls out roughly, walking forward to bump his shoulder against Tony's before passing by him. There's a section of the lab that he's grown particularly fond of in the past few days, behind a few things that Tony has half-built and experiments that Harley has here 'just in case' as he refers to them. As if someone needs something to tinker with just in case, but James hangs out with some of the brightest minds in the world. He genuinely thinks Shuri is likely the smartest person to ever live, but he's not going to announce that in front of Harley or Peter. He knows that they would agree, but he still shouldn't say it. 

"You gonna go lay down with the spare parts, old man?" Tony asks fondly, and when James turns, his eyes are sparkling again, pretty and happy. James looks at him through his lashes, just the edge of flirtation that he usually barely allows himself. 

It's not that he doesn't flirt with Tony, it's just that usually doesn't allow himself to look like it. 

"Why, you gonna come with me?" he asks, enjoying Tony's expression as the man sucks in a breath. Looking around the lab, taking account of all of the half-made things and scribbled hypothesis of possible products and maybe impossibilities, Tony shrugs, digging up a grin of his own and giving it to James like a gift he has never learned how to deserve. 

"I could go for a nap," Tony says, giving him an out for the offer he made himself, and James loves him. It's so easy to fall in love with a man that would give him anything even if he only views James as a friend, because he's just that giving, just that fiercely kind. It's so easy to fall in love with a man who is so kind, and yet so coldly fierce in the face of those who would do James harm, and still so strong and ready to defend and just... Tony is so much better than James can deal with. But, instead of saying no, he slips into a half grin that he's sure looks a bit like the Bucky Barnes in the old pictures, the laughter of the old reels, and he looks at Tony just as much as he wants to. 

"Let's get some sleep then, doll. Whattaya say?" he proposes, and Tony doesn't so much answer as he just walks across the lab, linking their arms. James leads him like he would have a dame back in the day, he thinks, taking him by the arm and navigating through the projects with ease, as if this is his whole home instead of a small part of the second home he was forced to take. He doesn't want to think about California, even if he still misses it like burning. 

When they get back to the bed of blankets and pillows that James set up back here (some of which were shamelessly stolen from Tony's favorites, some even stolen directly from his bedroom), Tony takes him by surprise, pushing him onto the palette with ease. James lays out in a sprawl and grins up at the genius, spreading his arms in offering. He doesn't actually expect Tony to go with it, but he's delightfully surprised as Tony just sinks into him, curling against him. 

"G'night, Jamie," Tony murmurs, already sounding half asleep. 

James smiles, and then he's asleep as well. 

 


	22. circumstance

The first time that James kisses Tony is in broad daylight with the buzz of the Bronx on the air, and he’s never regretted anything less.

The bravery of the kiss, however little it may be, is inspired by the fact that Tony kisses him first, quick and fleeting, just below his cheekbone. It's passable as platonic, especially with someone of Italian roots like Tony is, but James can't see it like that. If he needs to, he'll come up with something to say afterword, something to excuse this flight of fancy, maybe even just an apology, because there's no way that he can say that he doesn't mean this. There's something so good in feeling Tony so close to his skin, and there's something even better in the fact that Tony doesn't pull away. Tony doesn't pull away and when James pulls him closer, kisses him harder, he makes the softest little noise, just barely something to hear at all, and James's heart soars. 

"As happy for you as I am, and believe me, I'm ecstatic, can we hurry this along?" Michelle Jones, one of Peter's closest friends says as she raises her eyebrows and taps one of her shoes on the pavement. There's the sound of Peter shh'ing her and then he's showing her a phone, which James only pulls away from Tony's embrace to grab. He still hasn't fully looked Tony in the face, because if Tony looks anything like he does (slightly disheveled, red in the face, kiss bruised and begging), then he doesn't know that this outing with Pete and his friends will be such a good idea. Peter makes a noise of protest at the stolen phone, but can't exactly grab it as James death glares him into submission. 

It's a quick video of Tony's first kiss to James's cheek, followed by their actual kiss and then MJ's sarcasm. James snorts when he notices that Ned and Harley are in the background, Ned’s mouth open like the Pikachu meme that Peter keeps sending him and Harley pumping his fist into the air. Noticing that it's only sending to Harley, James edits the sending pool to also include him and the Snapchat that Tony never uses and saves it to Pete's phone before hitting send. Peter gapes at him. 

"If there's going to be a video of the first time I planted a kiss on Tony, I at least want to have ownership of it. Send me the video in chat so I can save it," James instructs, to which Peter just nods slowly. Tony is looking at him with that expression that means he's just pulled it together, half open wonder and half satisfied smile. 

"Anyway," MJ says, rolling her eyes and muttering something about white boy nonsense. "Now that the two of you have realised that you are, in fact, possibly the only two people gayer than Spider Boy here and that boy over there that he texts all the time, let's go to the goddamn zoo." Tony, Harley and Peter are all blushing dark while James just looks at MJ with a new respect, though he will still openly prefer Ned if he damn well pleases. Ned is the only one who respects him at all among the kids, even if he is the newest inductee. Apparently, that's not for long, though. Tony knows some girl in this city named Riri that they're apparently going to meet sometime soonish; James pushes down the parts of himself that sink at the idea. 

He hates that New York still doesn't feel as much like home as California. Maybe if they lived somewhere that wasn’t the Compound, somewhere that didn’t reek of displeasure and discomfort and all of the Rogues, maybe if he and Tony had somewhere to feel  _ safe.  _ Instead, all New York is is the place where he got Tony to take him on, and that’s a good thing, but maybe not good enough to rival California. 

Peter is in New York, and maybe Harley will be permanently there someday as well - he keeps talking about colleges near Peter like they aren't going off at the same time, like they can't pick together, like Peter wouldn't want to. James doesn't know who's gonna break that last bit to him (who's going to hit him with quite possibly the best news of his life), but James honestly hopes it's Peter. He has a feeling that Harley is going to kiss whoever reminds him of obvious facts and rational thinking, and he does not want to be in the way of that trainwreck. 

He's got his own, he reminds himself as he slips his right hand to lace his flesh fingers with Tony's. Tony startles just a bit, looking at him with wide, hopeful and unfamiliar eyes, and he looks just this shade of awed when James presses a kiss to the back of his hand. He can't find a way to promise that he means every single moment of this, so he just holds Tony's hand as they follow the kids into the labyrinth that is MJ's favorite zoo. Peter pets some things that James is pretty sure he's not supposed to, and James has to put a stop to when Ned tries to dare Peter to climb into one of the tanks, but otherwise, it passes without incident. Harley holds onto Pete’s hand to “stop him from making dumb decisions.” Sure, Jan. 

It's when the kids abandon them as soon as they come out the gate again that things start going just a little awry. Well, one of the kids doesn't abandon them immediately, but what Ned does is almost worse in that it makes  _ James _ blush. 

"Have a good date, Mr Stark, Sergeant Barnes! I just wanna say... You guys inspire me a lot, being superheros and being gay. I mean, Petey is a superhero and we all know he's a big queer, but you guys... you're grown ups. You already made it. I just... wanted to thank you guys. Have a good day!" Ned yelps as he's dragged away by MJ, her eyes rolling as she gives the really real adults a one handed wave. They're going to meet the rest of their nerd team for some reason or another, introducing Harley to their friends, which James knew, but he didn't know that... this would turn into a date. This was a setup. 

"We've been set up," Tony realises just as James does, though at least he bothers to notice it aloud. In between two trees in this little park outside the zoo, still with the sounds of New York that were once home enough to both of them, James leans down to set his forehead against Tony's looking him in the eyes. 

"I'm not mad about it," he confesses, his nose bumping into Tony's. He turns it into rubbing their noses together, soft and careful and affectionate, and Tony pushes him away slightly with a reddening of his features. James doesn't know that he'll ever get tired of making Tony blush now that he knows he can. Tony stays within range, within the circle of James's arms with his pretty smile and just the hint of insecurity in his eyes, and James wants to assure that away, wants to make sure it never comes back again. He knows that Tony has been hurt before, that he thinks that people only come for his fame and stay for his money, but James doesn't want either of those things. 

He wants Tony more than he thinks he's ever wanted anything, let alone in this life, and that's more than enough for him. 

"We're in public, Terminator. I have a reputation," Tony complains, his voice high and tight with embarrassment as he refuses to look James in the eye. James grins wide in victory and puts a quick kiss on Tony's lips, then on his nose, both his cheeks, his forehead, his chin, back up to his cheeks until Tony starts giggling, ducking his face into James's shoulder just so he'll stop and looking ten different kinds of adorable that James wants to keep forever. Tony feels like the patch of sunshine that James has been looking for his entire life, and he's felt like that the whole time, but maybe now he feels like James can actually lay down there, stay. 

"A reputation ain't nothin' a little kissin' can't ruin," James says, smiling through Tony's falsely irritated frown, which is obvious in the way that he looks at James like he's besotted. Before right now, maybe even this very moment, James hadn't been able to name that look, completely unwilling to put optimism to it without what one could solidly call evidence, and now, it's just so obvious. James wonders how he ever thought Tony didn't feel the same, and he pushes his own insecurity, his own discomfort with himself into a broom closet so that this thought can come to pass. “Tell me no,” he says instead, his nose tracking along Tony’s cheekbone. 

"You're doing this on purpose," Tony whines, and James nods. He extracts himself with a put off look, rolling his eyes as he completely removes himself from the circle of space that they had carved out for themselves in this little piece of peace. Tony bites his lip, seemingly torn between his precious reputation (as there are exactly zero witnesses that either of them can see) and the warmth and comfort that James's closeness had provided. James smirks. 

"Anythin' you wanna take me to, now that we're on a date, sugar?" James asks, raising an eyebrow. Tony definitely knows the New York of now much better than James does, former Winter Soldier with a world full of intel or not. James can tell you where to locate the worst drug dealers in Hell's Kitchen, can tell you where the Yakuza keeps their money stashed in these parts, can tell you where you can get the best hit man in the area, but he doesn't really know anything about any of the local joints. Something in him blazes with a heated fondness as Tony lights up, grabbing onto his metal arm because he never cares which one it is, and bounces in excitement. 

"I can show you the rest of the tower!" Tony says excitedly, bouncing on his heels like a little kid, and James isn't that strong of a man anymore. He leans forward and he kisses Tony on the forehead because he doesn't wanna stop himself anymore, doesn't want to keep himself from being exactly the kinda man he wants to be for Tony Stark. Tony pinks up again, looking like the most pretty thing that James has ever seen, and James doesn't regret being a sap at all. 

"You can show me whatever you want, Tony. Anything in New York, hell, anything anywhere. The world is your oyster," James claims, stopping himself from saying what he's thinking.  _ I'm yours, always, _ is what he's thinking, and that's too much too fast no matter how long he's been stepping around how he feels, how much he loves and loves and loves Tony. The part of him that doesn't want to go too fast wars against the part that wants Tony to know about every little piece of him that James adores, all the little things that James can and would list, every single sappy fucking thought. For now, he holds his tongue. 

"You, my deus ex machina, are a menace," Tony tells him, poking him in the chest, and James doesn't really know what that means, but he doesn't mind. He knows quite a few sayings like that, little pieces of non-English that have migrated into English, but that isn't one he's too familiar with. He may have seen it in a book at some point, scrolling his way through Tony's endless Amazon book list, but that's not to say that James particularly retained it. He slips his hand back into Tony's, taking the one that's still in the range of his chest because it's convenient and leads Tony toward where they had left his motorcycle. It was Tony's choice for James to do the driving, even if he had grumbled when James picked the bike. 

"You know, I complain about this bike because it's hot to see you on it," Tony announces like he isn't saying shit that makes James want to push him against the wall, and James can already feel a pull in the base of his stomach. He hasn't felt any sexual attraction, anything sexual at all since he was unfrozen, but Tony Stark says a word in his general direction and he's at half-mast. James snorts at himself and climbs onto the back, looking up and back at Tony through his lashes with a grin, watching at Tony swallows. 

"You gonna come up behind me, doll?" James asks, dripping all of his lasciviousness into the question, and he almost breaks to laugh as he watches Tony swallow again before he climbs onto the bike. Based off of what James can feel (which isn't all that much with both of them wearing jeans and on a bike that's vibrating with the power of the engines), someone is just as excited as he is. James lets himself slide back a little and hears Tony gasp as they stop at a light, and James has to remind himself that public indecency is a thing in the state of New York. In most states, really, if not all. He doesn't really know, and he's beginning to wonder if that's something he needs to look up, if he's going to be wanting to strip Tony out of his clothes on every road. 

It's all fine and dandy to play around with Tony on the road until the man himself slips his hand under the front of James's shirt, playing with his happy trail. James feels his stomach drop and it feels like all of his blood is rushing directly downward, and this cannot be safe. He can't risk Tony, so he pulls himself together instead of letting himself get distracted. He may have started this, but he can't afford to let Tony finish it either. 

"Doll," he says at the next light, making his voice almost as hard as he is, "if you don't quit, you're not going to see what's down there with your own eyes for at least another month." It's an empty threat, knowing that he won't be able to go that long, but it makes Tony retract his hand with a little disappointed noise, his face pressing against the back of James's shoulder. James wants to sooth him, but he also wants to get to a property that Tony owns before he actually comes in his jeans from motorcycle vibrations alone (along with knowing that Tony is behind him with his wide set hands and his pretty eyes and the cock that James can definitely feel through the ass of his jeans because who is he kidding, Tony has got to be hung like a horse down there, good God). 

He may or may not weave through traffic on the way to the tower, but that's neither here nor there. Who could blame him? If someone could tell him with a straight face and a steady heartbeat that they wouldn't have done the same thing in the same conversation, well (good, because James might just have to kill them for the implication that they would want to take his fella to bed but) they may just already be dead. Just the feeling of Tony's hand still on his hip is making James feel like he's going to explode out of his skin. 

"Howdy, boss. Howdy, Sarg," Friday greets them as James hurriedly turns off the bike, and James just waves at one of the cameras before pushing Tony against the nearest cement wall of the parking unit, kissing him like a drowning man. Tony kisses him back just as roughly, and this may just be what heaven tastes like. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> live long and prosper


	23. stereo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early because my roadtrip starts tomorrow! Hope you enjoy!

When Rogers slams the tabloid onto the table in front of James, he's already being driven half way up the nearest wall by the fact that Tony is at a meeting, so he's more or less ready to play ball over whatever has crawled up Rogers's ass and died anyway. He may or may not be on the first floor just because he's spoiling for a fight, and he may have left that tabloid for Rogers to find because he didn't want Rogers to think that he cared enough to ask permission to date Tony. So, it's not exactly surprising when Rogers slams down the magazine, it's just a little surprising that he doesn't start how James thinks he's going to. 

"You're fucking him?" Rogers accuses, launching directly into some kind of claim on someone instead of the moral high ground route that James was personally expecting. James raises his eyebrows, giving the good Captain a grin with all of his teeth, predatory and ready to rip out throats, if need be. 

"I'm doin' a lot more than fucking him. What's it matter to you?" James asks, kicking his feet up on the nearest table and giving off the general aura of not giving a fuck, knowing that it will piss Rogers off to high hell. It works. 

"Of course it fucking matters to me, Bucky! You've known him less than a year! You barely know him! You don't know what he's like!" Rogers says, gnashing at the jaws like a dog just let off the chain, and this is the fight that James wants. He's just looking for an excuse to knock in Mr Perfect's teeth, and he's getting way too close. 

"My name? Is James. And I know Tony better than I know anybody else on this fucking planet. He has my back and I have his, and there's no problem with us. I trust him with my life. I trust him with Harley and with Peter and with every fucking else, I trust him with my arm and just every fucking thing, Rogers. Damn fucking right I'm gonna trust him with my heart," James spits out. He won't downplay how he feels about Tony, won't let Rogers reduce to some physical thing that Tony can watch later on tape and feel shitty about. He goes distant when he thinks that he's feeling more than James does, and James can't fucking have that. 

"You love him?" Rogers asks, and he sounds a bit more broken than pissed, but James doesn't fucking care. He's already on that road. He's jumped to that conclusion; he's jumped, he's landed. Rogers can get fucked. 

"Of course I fucking love him. Just because you lot don't appreciate everything he does doesn't mean no one is going to. I've loved him for months, and I want to love him for the rest of my fucking life, Rogers. However long that lasts," James explains, setting it out like it's simple, because it is. It's the only thing that's simple to James these days, the only thing that doesn't make his head feel like a blender. Tony is his island in the storm, the eye of his hurricane, a thousand other metaphors about madness that James could take the time to generate, but none of them matter. 

Tony is the center of his universe, and that's just as important as anything else. 

"It wasn't always like this," Rogers says, sighs really, and James doesn't want to care. The parts that are all James don't, they have Winter Soldier stains and they only remember Steve Rogers who shoves him in a box, but the  _ Bucky  _ bits. The parts that are leftover from a thousand wars ago want to reach out and to comfort, want to ask him what, want to ask him why. All of James loves Tony more than anything else, but Bucky once loved Steve in just the same way, even if they were never like that. It was 1935 and Bucky was bi, Bucky loved girls just as much as boys, even if no one caught his eye like little Stevie Rogers with the bandages around his knuckles, it was easier to pretend. 

James can't even imagine pretending Tony isn't the only one for him. 

"Then tell me how it was. Tell me you know what he's worth," James demands. He wants to hear  _ everything,  _ wants to hear the Tony is invaluable, because he fucking is and someone else should know it. But, he knows that isn't what's going to come from Rogers, even if the other soldier is beginning with laying his heart on the table. 

"When the Avengers first started, we really were all friends. Everything was great. Me and Tony hung out in the lab like you guys do now, all holed up and talking about anything and everything, and I would take care of him. Someone has to make sure he eats, but I'm sure that if anyone knows that, it's you. He didn't used to sleep at all, and I'd make sure he had more sleep than coffee at least sometimes. I think I... I think I loved him, James. I think I loved him before you did, and that's why it hurts so much to see you doin' it now. Because I think I could have been you. Even if I'll never know if he ever wanted me back," Rogers laments his woes, looking at the floor with tear tracts going down his face, and James is stuck between wanting to comfort him and wanting to punch him in the face. 

"If you loved him, then why did you leave?" James asks. He knows it's a question that Tony asks himself every single day, sometimes hears it when Tony dreams next to him, and that's why he wants to punch Rogers so damn bad. Because Tony has hurt for this for months and months and has hurt for this and hurt and hurt. Roger doesn't get to cry it out on a couch that Tony paid for and make anything better. James won't fucking allow it. 

"Because of you! You were... I idolised you when we were kids. I loved you so much, Bucky. James. But you're not the same man anymore, and seeing you is like seeing a ghost and I just wanted to bring you back. Even if it meant destroying what I could have with Tony, destroying everything, I just needed one ghost to stop haunting me," Rogers says, finally looking up at James, and he looks fucking wrecked. James does not want to feel sympathy. He doesn't want to feel for Rogers at all, but it comes unbidden, and he has to breathe through showing any of it on his face. 

"Bucky loved you too, you know. A long time again, he thought about running away and marrying you, if only all of his sisters wouldn't hunt you down to play dress up and wouldn't tell your moms. He loved you so much, Rogers. But you never did anything about him either. He thought that loving you like that was wrong, was a waste of time and effort and energy because you were obviously not bent," James explains, sorting through all of the Bucky feelings that this is bringing up with all of the clarity of being beneath twenty feet of water, looking up at the sun. Rogers is looking at him like he is a ghost once again, and James smiles at him sadly. 

"He's gone, isn't he?" Rogers asks, an admittance that James never expected to get. Mourning is thick in the room like a death, and James is sorry, so sorry, that he isn't mourning even nearly so much as Rogers is. As... Steve is. He may not be Bucky's Stevie, but James can at least give him the glory of his own name. It's shit, knowing that his existence can hurt someone this much, and neither of them can change it at all. 

"I think he's been gone for a long, long time, Steve," James admits, biting his lip as he sits forward in his seat, tucking his legs in against himself. It feels wrong to be splayed out like that now, to put his presence so forward when Steve is obviously hurting so much, and... James wants to be mad. Steve has hurt Tony more than most anyone James has ever known, and Tony is so undoubtedly the most important person in James's life, but... Steve doesn't have someone like that. Wilson and Lang keep to each other mostly, Romanov is back on the farm with Barton, Maximoff is in training with visits to the farm, and Rogers... Steve is alone. James has never examined the absolute tragedy of it, and he wonders if that is a sort of willful ignorance as well. 

“Any chance I can still get to know James?” Steve asks, looking at the carpet with his shoulders slumped like he already knows the answer, and James almost says yes. He remembers Tony, remembers his sad eyes and his honey slow smile and the way that he holds James’s hand like he’s keeping him in orbit, and he hesitates. 

“Maybe you should learn to know Tony again, Steve. Maybe you should say you’re sorry to him before trying to get to know the man who is in love with him,” James suggests, standing out of his seat. He doesn’t look back at Steve, can’t make himself, before he gets into the elevator, putting his forehead against the wall of the metal box as Friday takes him up to the penthouse like the absolutely stellar kid she is. 

“You alright, Sarge?” Friday asks, her voice delicately concerned because she’s so much more than a program, and James directs a reassuring smile up at one of her cameras. 

“I’m fine, darlin. Can you tell Tony to come see me when he comes in?” James requests, which Friday immediately confirms. He nods at her and steps out of the elevator, walking through the penthouse and slamming face first into the bed that he and Tony share now, covered in blankets because Tony is a blanket hog and covered in pillows because James likes to line the edges of the bed. Instead of crying, like he half wants to, he falls dead asleep within a minute of laying down, dreamless and still. 

He wakes up to Tony’s hand on his back, lips pressed behind his ear, and he feels himself relax even as he tenses up from being woken up at all. Tony soothes him with humming noises like when James wakes up from nightmares, but he doesn’t feel like he’s had a nightmare at all. He feels fine. Well, that lasts right up until Tony is slicking a hand through James’s hair, laying down next to him. 

“Well, the damndest thing just happened to me on the way up,” Tony leads, inspiring James to shove his head into the pillow beneath his head, groaning. 

“I told Fri to send you to me first. I was gonna explain, have her show you the video, it was gonna be fine,” he explains, lifting his head off of the pillow to speak because he knows that Tony can’t hear him well when he’s muffled. He moves from the pillow to laying on Tony’s chest anyway, careful in where he places his head to have care with chest injuries, but generally laying on his… Tony, anyway. They haven’t discussed what they’re calling each other, and James doesn’t know how to ask. 

“You love me?” Tony asks, which is not what James was expecting at all. He lifts his head and looks at Tony, his genius’s face a blend of badly hidden insecurity and honest curiosity. James moves up and kisses him quick on the lips, soft and careful, and then again, and again, and again. Tony laughs when James kisses his nose and shoves him off like a dog, but James still puts a kiss on his hand. 

“Of course I love you. It’s what I do,” James replies, realising how true it is and not even remotely wanting to take it back. Tony gives him pretty eyes, but his expression turns downward quick in a way that James doesn’t like. 

“Bucky loved Rogers, and… Rogers loved me? He loved me, Jamie. And he left so fast,” Tony whispers, tongue running along his teeth in a way that shows how the sadness is mixed with bitterness, boiling over into anger in his mouth. “He left with just a fucking trace of you around, like I wasn’t anything. And why wouldn’t he? What am I worth in the face of what was apparently history’s greatest love story? Why would  _ you  _ stay?” Tony spits out, not looking at James, and James climbs up his body, taking Tony’s hands and pinning them to the bed so that the other man will actually look at him. 

“You, Anthony Edward Stark, are the man that saved me. You are everything to me. You are the love of my life, Tony Stark. Everything is better with you around. I don’t cook for one, because I’m always cooking for you, or for one of the kids we’re kinda raising together, or for someone you’ve taught me how to love, and I learned all of it because of you. You turned me into a person again, and I owe you my life. The least I can give you, the least I  _ want  _ to give you, is my love.” 

Tony looks up at him with wide eyes, and James can feel Tony’s hands shaking beneath his own. Instead of holding them at the wrist, he slips his hands forward to lace their fingers. 

“I am in love with you. And no one can change that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, this is not going in a stuckony direction.


	24. permanence

It's awkward. The Compound is awkward with Steve slinking around like a sad sack with Wilson and Lang looking around corners before they enter rooms because they don't want to be subjected to the awkward sadness that Steve radiates whenever James and Tony come downstairs. After Steve's apology, stilted as it was over the camera feed that James had watched after (at Tony's behest, because he never would have watched it without it directly being Tony's idea in the first place). James tries to come down more often though, because he doesn't want for Steve to think that he's not going to interact with Steve at all anymore. It's just... it's awkward. 

He's glad when his phone rings, if only because it gets him out of the kitchen without having to make a verbal excuse or having to slip out with Steve's eyes still following him like a kicked puppy. He's even happier when he realises that it's Tony, who has been out all day. 

"I did the thing!" Tony greets him before James can even say hello, and it just makes him smile indulgently. Maybe he's a little whipped (according to Harley and Peter and Shuri and MJ and Riri is already comfortable enough to roast whoever she wants because of course she is), but that's fine; Tony deserves someone being a little too into him. 

"And what's that, doll?" James asks, his tone slipping into fondness like it's going out of style, just because it always does. 

"We can move out of the Compound! According to Ross and the other members of the WSC, we are free to go whenever and wherever we want, so long as we report any movements within a twenty four hour advancement," Tony reports, and James can hear him bouncing through the phone. Despite this, James frowns a little; despite the awkward air, he doesn't want to leave Steve so quickly. Tony hears his hesitation, already beginning to say something else, but James interrupts. 

"I want to move out. I want that with you. But... how about the tower? Instead of moving all the way out to California. Peter is in New York, and Harley is coming soon, and Peter's friends, and Riri are already there, and... New York is home again when you're there, I think," James admits, looking down at the floor. They've gone to the tower a few times since their not-date in the Bronx, Tony excitedly showing him more and more sections of the tower that never seems to end. James has access to every single floor, to every single room, even to the massive arc reactor that powers it all. There's a new age safety to it, unlike the mansion in California, but... still the same. 

"You really wanna stay close to the kids?" Tony asks, like it's something James even has to consider. 

"Yes, I want to stay with the kids. You love them more than anything and... so do I," he says. He doesn't tell the kids that he loves them near so often as Tony does, doesn't drop it with notes on their new gadgets as he leaves them on doorsteps and in bedrooms, but he tries to say it with actions. He remembers MJ's vegan eating habits and Pete's hatred of most kinds of onions (except cooked red onions, which he loves, for some reason), and he remembers to remind Harley that he can't wear a binder all the time and... he loves the kids so much. Tony's voice is doing that high and soft thing he does sometimes when he doesn't want to break the peace, like this is something he can break at all. 

"I'm in love with you," Tony drops for the first time, over the phone no less, and James grins. He knew that, he definitely knew that, but it's nice to hear Tony say it like it's the most natural thing in the world, like it's not any work to love James at all. He wishes he could pull Tony close right now, wishes he could smell Tony's skin on his own, wishes they were close. 

"Love you too. When are you coming back?" James asks. He doesn't say home because they've moving, and he can finally admit aloud that this never felt like home in the first place. Tony gives him a humming noise. 

"End of today, I think, then we pack up our stuff? Can you go ahead and start packing up anything personal that Harls and Pete left? I think Riri's gauntlet is still under the couch if you want to grab it. If not, I can just make her new ones," Tony requests, and James snorts. 

"She'll kick your ass if you spoil her, you know," he remarks, to which Tony scoffs. 

"You really think she could kick my ass?" he asks, faux offense creeping into his voice. James rolls his eyes, even if Tony can't see it. 

"Tony," he says. Tony hums. 

"I mean she could, you're right, but you shouldn't say it." James narrows his eyes, leaning against the wall with a smile that he hopes doesn't creep into his voice, but he kinda knows it does. He just loves Tony so much. 

"Is that a meme?" he asks, even though he knows it is. It's a Simpsons meme that Harley and Peter send him when he calls them out on having feelings, though always individually. If he called either of them out while the other could see it, Master Assassin and house boyfriend of the Iron Man or not, he'd be dead. 

"You know it, Jamie, I'm hip with the kids," Tony reports, and James hates how easily he can hear the fucking finger guns. According to Peter, they're an indispensable hallmark of bisexuality, but James, who likes to think himself the dignified bi to Tony's obvious disaster bi, can't stand by it. Harley says that he's not a dignified anything, but what does Harley know? He's the biggest disaster gay of them all. 

"Come here," James demands, knowing that his demand will not be met, but Tony will love to hear it anyway. For some reason, he still loves to hear that he's wanted, even if James wants him around literally all the time and vocally hates when he leaves. Now that Tony knows how he feels, he's virtually unstoppable with the amount of clingy he wants to be, to which Harley, Peter, MJ, Shuri, and Riri all roast him in the groupchat. Ned still doesn't outright attack him in there, but he no longer even attempts to come to James's or even Tony's defense. After the third blurry tabloid picture that Harley had sent into the groupchat with "Does James Barnes is Gay?," James supposes that that's fair. Even if he personally saves the tabloid pictures. 

It's fine. 

"I'll be there when I can, sugar plum, you know that. Want me to start rousing the troops? I'm sure Petey would be delighted to come help us move. I'm pretty sure you could... you could ask Cap if you wanted to. I wouldn't mind," Tony offers, slow and careful like he thinks that James is going to react negatively to the suggestion, but James jumps at it. 

"Would you be okay with inviting him around occasionally? I think he's... I think he's lonely, Tony. And... I know that doesn't negate what he's done, but... he was Bucky's best friend. You don't have to forgive him," James ends, soothing in his tone, but Tony hums in derision. 

"He's already been forgiven, Jamie. And, if you want to invite him to the tower, that's alright with me," Tony says, and though James searches for hesitation or unsurety in his voice, he doesn’t find it. He’s more relieved than he’d like to say. If Steve really is willing to get to know him as someone separate from Bucky, as a new man with new feelings and new wants and needs, James wants the chance to know him as well. Maybe they’ve both changed. Maybe they can be new friends. There’s a sudden buzz of conversation in the background of Tony’s side, something that sounds like an argument, and it doesn’t sound good. 

“I’ll see you when you get here, right? I love you,” James signs off, allowing Tony off the hook. 

“Love you too, Jamie. Try and have a good day,” Tony instructs, and then the line is cut off. Littlefoot, who comes with James almost everywhere now, sits at his feet and nudges her head against his ankles. He has to lean down to pick her up by her belly, but he does it anyway, perching her on one of his shoulders; he's seen pictures of organic cats doing this, liking to feel tall, so he's recently started carrying Littlefoot in the same way. 

"Hi James," Steve greets as James comes back into the room, reaching up to pet Littlefoot while making it very clear that he doesn't intend to touch James at all. Littlefoot clicks at him, which Peter and Harley had decided would be much cuter than full meows, which makes Steve break into a smile that James doesn't think he's seen since he was Bucky. Even the few smiles that James had seen in the 21st century, after Steve had found James and thought he found Bucky, didn't seem as wide and genuine. James holds out a hand for Littlefoot to climb down onto, holding her out to Steve when she's settled. 

"She's a good girl if you want to hold her," James offers, letting the machine cat pretend to sniff at Steve's skin. Well, what she actually does is scan the air in front of her and do a reading of emotional response and vitals, but there's no need to think of her as a medical device that his pseudo sons made for him to help him feel better about being alive, because that's just too much, isn't it? Right now, he thinks that Steve could use something like Littlefoot, could use someone like Harley or like Peter, someone who cares so much and loves with their whole heart and just wants their people to be happy. 

Steve Rogers, with all of his wrongs and all of the people that he has hurt while trying to save the world in the best way he knows how, deserves a family. 

"Me and Tony, we're gonna move back to the Tower. I, uh. I asked Tony, and he's alright with the idea of you visiting from time to time, if you would like to. He wants to check in with you while we're living there as well, so. You're more than welcome to come by, if you want. Your floor is still open," James says, and then he's leaving Littlefoot the opportunity to come with him or stay with Steve as he turns his back, too embarrassed and maybe even vulnerable to turn around and face the music of the big band he decided should play tonight. 

"You want me to come by sometimes?" Steve asks his back, sounding just as insecure as James feels in his throat, and he wants to turn around, wants to reassure, but instead he keeps walking. 

"Whenever you want, Steve," he replies as he steps into the elevator, completely unsurprised as Littlefoot continues to purr in her metallic whirring instead of following him upstairs. Friday plays him music in the elevator, something soft that sounds like someone else's home, and James thinks that maybe it could be his home, maybe one day. He looks up at the ceiling and blows her a kiss, which she returns by turning all of the lights in the box a brief pink. 

"Love you, Fri," he remarks softly on his way out of the elevator, smoothing a hand over one of the walls like he does Harley's back, like how he puts a hand on Peter's shoulder, how he rubs a hand through Riri's hair just so she'll scream at him and shove him away with just a bit of playful laughter in her eyes. He's still learning how to love her like the rest, but he thinks that learning to love is the most fun of it all. 


	25. gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. This is the end.

Harley is making fun of him for making cookies for the second anniversary of Tony taking him in, calling him a strangely thankful stray dog, and James supposes that that's fair. He was certainly a rehabilitated attack dog before Tony got his hands on him, but Harley just makes a disgusted face when he says that, throwing a roll of paper towels at him. He goes strangely silent when Peter comes in and puts a kiss on his cheek though, making Harley flush down to his chest and look away. James high fives Peter in a way that totally isn't subtle as Riri rolls her eyes, perched on top of the fridge, exactly where James told her to be. 

This house is a fucking nightmare. 

But it's the best fucking part of James's life, and he lives and dies for it, for the way that their family has come together. Harley and Peter have more or less moved in, Peter still spending half of his time at his aunt's while trying to convince her to move into Stark tower as well. Riri showed up with a duffel bag, a cat that looked more like a rat and a girl about a year ago, glaring at anyone who would try to tell her to leave. Instead, James had taken the cat and cleaned her off, and they had named her Ducky, letting her have the run of the tower with Littlefoot following her around and adopting her mannerisms in the cutest ways. 

The girl was Kamala, and she's great. James loves her more than he can say, though he's still getting to know her; she's better with the kids her age than she is with adults, and James can hardly blame her. As many powers as she has, as powerful as she is, he and Tony still have a reputation. Ned no longer gives a single fuck about the reputation, despite the respect he gives them for being as famous as they are and out, and he sits on James's counter like he belongs there, mostly because he does. 

James doesn't know what they would have done if Pete's friends hadn't taken to them like fish to water, to be honest. 

Wanda mostly stays to her own floor, but she's been coming around more ever since they got Pietro back. He had to be kept in cryo for a couple of years to heal him so that Dr. Cho could do what she did to save him, but he's back now and Wanda is much better for it. Her powers are even easier for her to manage with him around; she mutters something about anchors, something quick and hard to understand if you don't speak Sokovian. Wanda had been angry at first when he came back; all the secrets Tony had kept from her boiling over inside her. They had both come out of the conversation crying and hugging, but no one was hurt, so James assumes it went okay. Pietro and James get along like a house on fire, something that Tony frequently complains about. 

Tony. Tony has Rhodes and Pepper and Happy and Hope and Carol Danvers and all of the Defenders and anyone else he can get his hands on now, and he's so fucking happy, and James is all the more happier for it. Even Steve comes around every once and a while, blazing in on his motorcycle and bringing back gifts from wherever he's returning from; he usually brings at least a little something for every single kid, and you should have seen his face when he realised that Kamala was new and he didn't have anything. He had run out immediately and picked up a stuffed animal at the corner store despite her being a very nearly full grown adult. 

She keeps it on her nightstand and brings it out with her during the day sometimes. Steve lights up every single time he sees it. 

Barton and Romanoff show up occasionally enough that James has started calling them Clint and Natasha to their faces, but only after a clear apology to Tony had been made. Apparently, Tony had bankrolled the Barton family in Clint’s absence, keeping Laura from going under with the farm, and upon Clint’s return, Laura had basically beat him around the head and neck for being so rude to Tony in the first place. Everyone on that side of things seems to be okay again, but they’re still splitting the Avengers into two teams; there’s just so many of them now that it makes more sense. 

Bruce and Thor are reforming Asgard over Kansas or something; James doesn’t know all the details because it makes his head feel like a blender, but he assumes it’s going okay. Tony seems more settled after being on the phone with Bruce. 

His mind is wrenched out of the clouds by arms snaking their way around his waist, a chest pressed to his shoulder blades while familiar hands take purchase on his stomach. Stubble caresses the side of his neck and the kids groan as Tony kisses James’s cheek from behind, but James just smiles. 

“Hey sugar plum, what’s cookin?” Tony asks, looking at the stove. They’re are a lot of things cooking, mostly vegetarian friendly, so many that James doesn’t really want to explain. Thankfully, Peter jumps into an animated explanation while Harley hops off of the counter to ostensibly get out of the way, but really he leans casually in front of the oven as to block Tony's view of it. God, he's a good kid. 

"Are we meant to be keeping a secret? You know how I hate to be excluded," Loki says as he walks into the room, and oh yeah, there's Loki too. He isn't too involved in the remaking of Asgard, something about not wanting to contribute to the forming of a land that still won't be his, which James supposes he can understand. What he cannot understand, however, is Loki's impulse to ruin surprises, which makes James want to punch him in the face. 

"Actually, Loki, we're going!" Pietro says excitedly as he skids into the room, disappearing in a whirlwind with Loki along with him. Tony just blinks at the place that they left, creasing his eyebrows. 

"What secret are we keeping?" he asks, hesitant, and MJ coughs from her perch where she criss-cross-applesauce on the kitchen table, some book of obscure poetry that she nicked from Tony's library in her lap. 

"I didn't want to tell you til dinner, but... I got into Juilliard," she announces. It's not the cover up that James had expected, and he leaves the stove, disentangling himself from Tony with a quickness so that he can sweep her up in a hug. They've gotten close over the past year and a half, talking about the hardship of losing things and how sometimes being mean is a good exterior to keep if you don't want too many people to get in. They've talked a lot about how it's just easier to expect people to leave. 

"MJ, I'm so proud," he says into her hair, hoisting her up off of the table a little. She's been wanting to get into Juilliard for years, she's told him, because being a playwright at Julliard is the kind of status symbol that makes her want to scream, and thus she needs it posthaste. She laughs but she holds onto him just as hard, and he can hear the near tears in a bit of her laugh. Instead of covering it up for her, which he might have done six months ago, he just lets it happen. They've been talking about emoting in public, even if it's just in front of friends and family for now, and maybe now is the time. 

"Move, she's my baby too! God, how did we end up as dads to like 37 and a half kids?" Tony asks, sounding put off but still shoving past James to wrap his arms around MJ as well. MJ only allows the crowding attention for about half a minute before she pushes both of them off, standing up directly on top of the table before stepping onto one of the bar stools and then onto the bar, Ned holding onto her hand to keep her steady as she sits down on the counter next to him. He taps something into her hand, probably the Morse code that they learned together last year, and if James isn't wrong, it looks awfully like I'm proud of you. 

He wonders when MJ will realise that Ned likes her back, but it's not really his business. Or, at least, it won't be for some time. Probably around the time when MJ realises that both Ned and Shuri like her, and she likes both of them back and it becomes something awkward for James to help sort out. But, that's neither here nor there. 

"So, uh. When's dinner?" Pietro says as he comes speeding back into the room, sans Loki but with mussed hair and bruised lips. James raises his eyebrows, smirking over at the other man who blushes dark at the attention. 

"About ten minutes?" James gives, which is about eight minutes more than it will take for the food to actually be done, but he can allow some concessions. Loki just got back from having to speak to Thor about something after all, an endeavor that had taken all weekend with how the king is busy these days (and how he occupies his free time engaging in certain activities with the good Doctor Banner that no one wants to think about). Pietro nods and disappears again, leaving several of the kids with wind mussed hair. 

"So, when do you think that they're gonna confirm that they're fucking?" Riri asks from where she's still on top of the fridge. 

"You know, it's comments like that that get you put on the fridge," Kamala comments. Riri is the main person that she's willing to snipe with call outs, and James always smiles to see it. Well, she'll also outright attack Peter, but anyone and everything outright attacks Peter. He has a villain that's an entire rhino. He deserves it. 

“I’ll put you on the fucking fridge,” Riri grumbles back, crossing her arms. She only puts down the demeanor when Shuri is in the tower, if only because the sharp Wakandan princess will absolutely murder her with impressions of her antics. He wonders when Shuri is coming to the tower next; the tower may never be her home, but she always has a place to stay here, and he'll always want her to take it. She was his first friend, after all. 

"There are cookies in the oven for the anniversary of your deciding to take James in as one would a stray animal," Loki announces as he pops into the room, not disheveled like Pietro was, but quite as if he just used magic to make himself not that way. Pietro, obviously having run up at least four sets of stairs (depending on whether or not they were getting it on on the floor he shares with his sister or Loki's), comes to a stop beside his partner, slugging him in the arm. 

"I tried to stop him," he says to James, frowning. His accent is still so much thicker than Wanda's, likely because of so much more time just spent in his own head where the language was still Sokovian (while Wanda wandered everywhere and had the languages of everyone within her). Tony turns to him and James ducks his head. 

"You made me cookies? There are cookies? What kind? How many? You know I love you, right? I love you so much," Tony says, cupping James's face and giving him a big, wet kiss that he knows will make the kids groan, as they surely do. James kisses him back, slow and intimate and turning it into something that the children definitely do not want to see, but he doesn't really care. They're all grown, and if they want to leave the room, they certainly know where all the fucking exits are, including the vents, seeing as Clint and his friend Kate had decided that the vent network is definitely worth being travel ready. 

"Dad," Harley whines, "I'm fucking hungry and the rice is about to burn. I can smell it. I can feel it in my soul. Save my risotto, James. Obi-wan, you're my only hoe." Everyone bursts into snickers at that, even James who tucks his nose against Tony's throat before disentangling them. 

"Yeah, yeah, go make sure that Wanda and Steve know it's time for dinner," James says, clearing his throat and pushing down a blush. 

It's kinda funny, how happy he is. 

He never thought he'd get here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad you've gotten this far! I hope you guys have enjoyed it even half as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> If you were wondering about the chapter titles, they come from the playlist for this fic! That's right, there's a playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6V1MS1yMJANvBEJdcHgtfk?si=wTQPB39nS5qptOljMvZ-bA - Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Leave a comment, leave some kudos, and have a good time, kids!


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